Anne Elisabeth Osbourn is a professor of biology and group leader at the John Innes Centre,[1] where she investigates plant natural product biosynthesis.

[4] Her parents both studied and lectured English literature[4] and her father served in the army during World War II.

[5] At this time, researchers worked out how to transform the Rhizobium nitrogen fixation genes into the bacterium Escherichia coli.

[4] Osbourn moved to the University of Birmingham for her doctoral studies on host adaptation in Septoria nodorum, supervised by Chris Caten.

In 2005 she re-joined the John Innes Centre as a group leader, and was appointed head of the Department for Metabolic Biology in 2006.

[4][16][2][17] The SAW Trust is an international charity that promotes innovation in science communication, and works with young people from elementary schools in initiatives which bring together scientists, writers and artists to explore creative science communication initiatives.

[21] She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2020 New Year Honours for services to plant science.