Anne Osbourn


Anne Elisabeth Osbourn is a professor of biology and director of the Norwich Research Park industrial biotechnology alliance at the John Innes Centre, where she investigates plant natural product biosynthesis. She recognised that in the plant genome, the genes involved with biosynthesis organise in clusters. She is also a popular science communicator, and founder of the Science, Art and Writing Initiative.

Early life and education

Osbourn grew up in West Yorkshire. Her parents both studied and lectured english literature and her father served in the army during World War II. She became interested in plants as a child and She attended Bingley Grammar School and graduated in 1979. She earned a bachelor's degree in botany at Durham University. At the time, researchers worked out how to transform the Rhizobium nitrogen fixation genes into the bacterium Escherichia coli. Osbourn moved to the University of Birmingham for her doctoral studies on host adaptation in Septoria nodorum, supervised by Chris Caten. She has described the Salem State University educationalist Louise Swiniarksi as her 'anchor throughout my adult life'.

Research and career

Osbourn moved to Norwich in 1985, working at the John Innes Centre and Sainsbury Laboratory. Osbourn is a Professor at the John Innes Centre, where she is also Director of the Norwich Research Park Industrial Biotechnology Alliance. She looks at how natural products interact with natural organisms. Her early work looked at saponins and their role in plant defence. Osbourn studies natural product biosynthesis. In particular, she has worked on the biosynthesis of triterpene. She identified that metabolic pathways organise in operon-like clusters, which allowed her to develop a novel opportunity to discover natural product pathways through genome mining. The natural products include terpenes, which can be used in the pharmaceutical industry as well as food and manufacturing. Her research has been funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.

Public engagement and honours

She was appointed to the UEA Creative Writing Course as a Nesta dreamtime fellow in 2004. Here she wrote poetry about her life as a plant scientist. Osbourn became a popular science writer, and founded the Science, Art and Writing Initiative. Young scientists from elementary schools in the UK and China take part in the SAW initiative. In 2016 Osbourn took part in an international exchange with the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology.
Osbourn was elected to AcademiaNet in 2014. She is an editor of the New Phytologist. She has won various awards and honours, including the medal of the University of Helsinki. In 2019 Osbourn was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society. She is the thirtieth research who has been elected Fellow from the John Innes Centre.
She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2020 New Year Honours for services to plant science.

Patents