OBITUARIES

Professor Daphne J. Osborne (1925–2006)

Daphne J. Osborne as a young woman

Many members of the American Society of Plant Biologists will be much saddened by the recent death of Daphne Osborne. Well known for her work on plant hormones and DNA repair, Daphne died on June 16, 2006, at age 81, after a short illness.

Something of a workaholic, Daphne continued active laboratory research until shortly before her death, leaving a legacy of over 200 research papers (20 of them in Nature) and a lasting impression on her students, professional associates, and the many people she met and encouraged at countless scientific meetings worldwide. Among some notable scientific achievements was a strong contribution in the late 1960s and early 1970s to positioning ethylene in its rightful place as a natural plant hormone with key regulatory functions, especially in controlling senescence and abscission of leaves, fruit, and shoots. No less important has been her development of the “target cell” concept as an aid to understanding how a relatively small number of hormones can have so many different and spatially separated effects in plants. She was also a world-renowned authority on seed aging and DNA repair and at the time of her death was involved in a project examining DNA repair in plants affected by radioactive fall-out from the Chernobyl nuclear power station in the Ukraine.

Her scientific work attracted a number of honors and awards, including an honorary professorship at the University of Kiev (Ukraine), honorary doctorates from the Open University (United Kingdom) and University of Natal (South Africa), and an honorary research fellowship from Somer-ville College, Oxford University (United Kingdom).

Daphne Osborne was an innovative scientist who loved the intellectual challenge of discovery and turning hard-won results into highly readable science that graced the pages of a great many journals and books since her first publication (with R. L. Wain, in Science) in 1951.

Mike Jackson
University of Bristol