[citation needed] As a graduate student working in the laboratory of Johannes Holtfreter, Townes pioneered a technique for studying the kinetic and morphogenetic phenomena, subsequent to the combination of two or more well defined cell types, that revolutionized the understanding of morphogenesis, and serves as the basis for the differential adhesion hypothesis.
This demonstrated that in the process of sorting out, the different cell types exhibited a cell-specific tendency to arrange themselves in a definite tissue pattern that corresponded to that in normal development.
The work was published as Townes' thesis in the classic paper in embryology and developmental biology, 'Directed movements and selective adhesion of embryonic amphibian cells' in 1955 in the J. Exp.
[citation needed] In 1965, Townes described the first patient with isolated trypsinogen deficiency with secondary lack of activation of chymotrypsin and procarboxypeptidase.
[10][11] Townes was a member of the faculty and Professor of Pediatrics and Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School from 1979 to 1995 where he directed the Genetic Clinic and the Cytogenetics Laboratory.