During this time, she was a winner of the IBM Math Competition, winning a slide rule,[17] and received special recognition for her early aptitude in science.

[24] Together with Bill Sellers, she discovered molecules that block nuclear export[25] and formed the basis for a publicly traded company Karyopharm Therapeutics.

[26] She has worked extensively on designing modified bacteria to act as sensors for exposure to a drug[27] or inflammation[28] in the mammalian gut.

Her former students include" Christina Agapakis,[2] Valerie Weiss, Karmella Haynes, Jessica Polka and Anita Corbett[29] Some of Silver's work in this area includes the engineering of: mammalian cells to remember and report past exposures to drugs and radiation,[30][31][32] robust computational circuits in embryonic stem cells and bacteria,[33] and synthetic switches to moderate gene silencing with the integration of novel therapeutic proteins.

Silver has characterized the carboxysome – the major carbon-fixing structure in cyanobacteria – to enhance photosynthetic efficiency[36] and carbon fixation.

[39] Silver collaborated with Daniel Nocera at Harvard University to develop a device, called the "Bionic Leaf", that converts solar energy into fuel through a hybrid water-splitting catalyst system that leverages metabolically engineered bacteria.

[40] Silver discovered a correlation between nuclear transport and gene regulation – she identified the first arginine methyltransferase, which plays a role in chromatin function and is important to the movement of RNA binding proteins between the nucleus and cytoplasm of cells.