Jane Osbourn
British biotechnologist
Jane Osbourn, OBE, is a scientist and former chair of the UK BioIndustry Association.
A Natural Sciences graduate of Queens' College, Cambridge, Osbourn completed several post-graduate qualifications before moving into industry at Cambridge Antibody Technology, that became MedImmune and AstraZeneca.
In the Queen's Birthday Honours list of 2019, Osbourn was awarded the Order of the British Empire medal for services to "Human Monoclonal Antibody Drug Research and Development and Biotechnology".
Early life
Osbourn was born in Bingley, West Yorkshire, and attended Bingley Grammar School. She is married to John Richer, Professor of Physics at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge.
She is the sister of Professor Anne Osbourn FRS who investigates plant natural product biosynthesis.
Academic career
Osbourn went on to study at the Queens' College, Cambridge, where she obtained a 1st class degree in Natural Sciences (Biochemistry). She was recognised in 1986 for playing netball at Queens, and was awarded both a third year Foundation Scholarship and The Henry Mosseri prize.
She went on to complete a PhD degree at the John Innes Centre for Plant Science Research in Norwich, which resulted in the publication of Evidence that nucleocapsid disassembly and a later step in virus replication are inhibited in transgenic tobacco protoplasts expressing TMV coat protein. Following this, she completed a post-doctoral position at Rutgers University, New Jersey, United States, undertaking research directed towards clarification of the sequence elements responsible for the translational enhancement effect conferred by the 5' untranslated region of Tobacco Mosaic Virus known as omega.
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