Anne Osbourn facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Anne Osbourn
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Osbourn in 2015
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Anne Elisabeth Osbourn
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| Education | Bingley Grammar School |
| Alma mater | Durham University University of Birmingham |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Natural products |
| Institutions | John Innes Centre University of East Anglia Sainsbury Laboratory New Phytologist |
| Thesis | Host adaptation and variation in septoria nodorum (1985) |
Anne Elisabeth Osbourn is a leading professor and researcher in biology. She works at the John Innes Centre in the UK. Her main research is about how plants make special natural chemicals. She discovered that the genes plants use to make these chemicals are often grouped together.
Professor Osbourn also loves sharing science with others. She writes poetry and started the Science, Art and Writing (SAW) Initiative. In 2022, she became a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
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Early Life and Learning
Anne Osbourn grew up in West Yorkshire, England. Her parents both taught English literature. She became interested in plants when she was a child.
She went to Bingley Grammar School and finished in 1979. Then, she studied botany (the study of plants) at Durham University. She earned her first degree in 1982. Later, she went to the University of Birmingham for her PhD. Her research there focused on how a plant disease called Septoria nodorum adapted to its hosts.
Research and Discoveries
In 1985, Anne Osbourn moved to Norwich to work as a researcher. She joined The Sainsbury Laboratory in 1987. In 1999, she became a group leader, which means she led her own research team. She returned to the John Innes Centre in 2005.
Plant Chemicals and Genes
Her early work looked at chemicals called saponins. These chemicals help plants defend themselves. Professor Osbourn studies how natural plant products interact with living things. She has focused on how plants make chemicals called triterpenes.
She made an important discovery: the genes that control how plants make these chemicals are often found in clusters. This is like finding a whole recipe book for a chemical in one place on the plant's DNA. This discovery helps scientists find new natural products by looking at a plant's genes. These natural products, like terpenes, can be useful in medicine, food, and manufacturing.
Leading Research Projects
Since 2014, Professor Osbourn has been a director of the OpenPlant Synthetic Biology Research Centre. This center studies synthetic biology, which is about designing and building new biological parts. It is a joint project between the John Innes Centre and the University of Cambridge.
She also led the Norwich Research Park Industrial Biotechnology Alliance from 2013 to 2019. Today, she continues to lead a research group at the John Innes Centre. Her team studies plant natural products, how they are made, what they do, and how to use them in new ways.
Sharing Science with Everyone
In 2004, Anne Osbourn became a fellow at the UEA Creative Writing Course. There, she wrote poetry about being a plant scientist. This experience inspired her to share science in creative ways.
The SAW Trust
In 2005, she started the Science, Art and Writing (SAW) Trust. This is an international charity. It helps scientists, writers, and artists work together to explain science in fun ways. The SAW Trust works with young people, even in elementary schools. They create projects that bring science to life through art and writing.
The SAW Trust has a large educational program in China. Over 1,000 children in China have taken part in SAW projects. In 2016, Professor Osbourn also took part in an exchange program with the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology.
Awards and Recognitions
Professor Osbourn has received many awards for her work.
- In 2003, she received a medal from the University of Helsinki.
- In 2018, she became a Fellow of the Linnean Society.
- In 2019, she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS). This is a very high honor for scientists in the UK. She was the thirtieth researcher from the John Innes Centre to receive this award.
- In 2020, she was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE). This award was for her great contributions to plant science.
She also helps guide scientific publications. She is an editor for the New Phytologist journal.
Patents
- 2011: Root-specific promoters (ideas for controlling genes in plant roots)
- 2008: Enzymes involved in triterpene synthesis (discoveries about how plants make triterpenes)
