Daphne Osborne

Education and career Born in India, where her father was a colonial administrator, Osborne attended The Perse School in Cambridge. Her BSc in chemistry and MSc in botany were from King's College London. Her PhD on the topic of plant growth regulators was from the University of London at Wye College, Kent, where her supervisor was Ralph Louis Wain. Her first postgraduate position was in the Department of Biology of the California Institute of Technology, USA, as a Fulbright Scholar, where she worked with botanist Frits Warmolt Went, among others.

Much of Osborne's career was spent at the Agricultural Research Council (ARC), later renamed the Agricultural and Food Research Council (AFRC). In 1952, she joined the ARC Unit of Experimental Agronomy at Oxford University, where she worked until the unit's closure in 1970. She then took up the position of deputy director at the new ARC Unit of Developmental Botany at the University of Cambridge. After the unit's closure in 1978, she joined the AFRC Weed Research Organization at Begbroke just outside Oxford, where she worked until its closure in 1985, attaining the position of deputy chief scientific officer, a senior position in the British Civil Service. She conducted extensive research into interactions between ethylene and auxin (another key plant hormone) in controlling numerous aspects of plant development. This work led her to develop the idea of the target cell as a model for how a small number of plant hormones can exert many different effects, a concept she expounded in her 2005 book, Hormones, Signals and Target Cells in Plant Development (co-authored with Michael McManus). Among her final research projects was a study of the effects on DNA repair in seeds and pollen of exposure to radioactive fallout after the Chernobyl nuclear reactor explosion.

Awards and honours Osborne was awarded an honorary professorship at the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv in Ukraine in recognition of her research on the Chernobyl disaster, as well as an honorary research fellowship from Somerville College, Oxford. She received honorary doctorates from the UK's Open University and from the University of Natal, South Africa. In January 2008, a commemorative issue of the journal Annals of Botany was published in her honour.

Key works Books Osborne DJ, McManus MT. Hormones, Signals and Target Cells in Plant Development (Developmental and Cell Biology Series no. 41) (Cambridge University Press; 2005)

Research papers Boubriak II, et al. (2008) Adaptation and impairment of DNA repair function in pollen of Betula verrucosa and seeds of Oenothera biennis from differently radionuclide-contaminated sites of Chernobyl. Annals of Botany 101: 267–276 (pdf)

Cheah KSE, Osborne DJ. (1978) DNA lesions occur with loss of viability in embryos of aging rye seed. Nature 272: 593–599 (abstract) Osborne DJ, Wright M. (1978) Gravity induced cell elongation. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 199: 551–564 Knee M, Sargent JA, Osborne DJ. (1977) Cell wall metabolism in developing strawberry fruits. Journal of Experimental Botany 28: 377–396 (abstract) Osborne DJ, Jackson MB, Milborrow BV. (1972) Physiological properties of an abscission accelerator from senescent leaves. Nature New Biology 240: 98–101 Jackson MB, Osborne DJ. (1970) Ethylene, the natural regulator of leaf abscission. Nature 225: 1019–1022 (abstract) Ridge I, Osborne DJ. (1970) Hydroxyproline and peroxidases in cell walls of Pisum sativum: regulation by ethylene. Journal of Experimental Botany 21: 843–856 (abstract) Horton RF, Osborne DJ. (1967) Senescence, abscission and cellulase activity in Phaseolus vulgaris. Nature 214: 1086–1088 (abstract) Ellis PE, Carlisle DB, Osborne DJ. (1965) Desert locusts: sexual maturation delayed by feeding on senescent vegetation. Science 149: 546–547 (abstract (with link to pdf)) Fletcher RA, Osborne DJ. (1965) Regulation of protein and nucleic acid synthesis by gibberellin during leaf senescence. Nature 207: 1176–1177 Osborne DJ, Hallaway HM. (1964) The auxin, 2-4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid as a regulator of protein synthesis and senescence in detached leaves of Prunus. New Phytologist 63: 334–347 Osborne DJ. (1962) Effect of kinetin on protein & nucleic acid metabolism in Xanthium leaves during senescence. Plant Physiology 37: 595–602 Osborne DJ. (1955) Acceleration of abscission by factors in senescent leaves. Nature 176: 1161–1163

Personal life From 1959 until 1961 she was married to the botanist and lichenologist David Cecil Smith. This ended in divorce.

References and notes