Catherine M. Green

Catherine Mary Green is an English biologist who is an associate professor in chromosome dynamics at the Wellcome Centre for Human Genetics at the University of Oxford. Her research considers chromosome stability during the replication of DNA. During the COVID-19 pandemic Green was part of the Oxford team who developed the Oxford–AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.

Early life and education Green grew up in Gravesend and attended Gravesend Grammar School for Girls. She was an undergraduate at Churchill College, Cambridge, where she has said that her love of science was solidified. After earning her PhD degree from the University College London in 2000, Green moved to the Curie Institute, where she studied DNA damage in human cells as a Marie Curie Fellow. She held a Kaye Research Fellowship at Christ's College, Cambridge.

In 2012 Green moved to the University of Oxford, where she joined the Wellcome Centre for Human Genetics. Here Green expanded her work in genomics to encompass the genetic and epigenetic stability of DNA. Green was made Monsanto Senior Research Fellow at Exeter College, Oxford in 2017. She leads the core facility in Chromosome Dynamics at the Wellcome Centre.

During the COVID-19 pandemic Green was part of the Jenner Institute team who developed a coronavirus disease vaccine. The Jenner Institute vaccination platform had been prepared for the MERS and SARS outbreaks, and so was ready to respond quickly to the emerging disease. The team started research in January 2020, and managed to identify a chimpanzee adenovirus vector (ChAdOx) that generated a strong immune response to SARS-CoV-2. On 30 December 2020, the vaccine was approved for use in the UK. More than 3billion doses of the vaccine were supplied to countries worldwide.

In 2021, Green and Sarah Gilbert published Vaxxers: the inside story of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine and the race against the virus.

Honours and awards Green was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Engineering (DEng) by the University of Bath in December 2022. The award recognised her as a 'world-renowned biologist, whose work on developing a COVID-19 vaccine helped save millions of lives worldwide.' Her publications include: