Mary Osborn

For other people with similar names, see Mary Osborn (disambiguation).

Mary Osborn
Mary Osborn and her husband, Klaus Weber
Born1940 (age 83–84)[1]
Darlington
Alma mater
SpouseKlaus Weber
Scientific career
Institutions
ThesisThe Determination and Use of Mutagen Specificity in Bacteria Containing Nonsense Codons (1967)
Doctoral advisorStanley Person[1][2][3]
Websitempibpc.mpg.de/osborn

Mary Osborn (born in 1940)[4] is a L'Oréal-UNESCO Women in Science Award-winning English cell biologist who, until she stopped running an active laboratory in 2005,[5] was on the scientific staff at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Göttingen, Germany.[5] Osborn established two techniques frequently used by cell biologists. She pioneered both molecular weight determination of proteins using SDS PAGE[6] and immunofluorescence microscopy.[7] Osborn also used the immunofluorescence microscopy method to work out the details of the eukaryotic cytoskeleton. Small differences in the intermediate filament constituents helped her distinguish differentiated cells from each other.[8] She also found intermediate filament immunofluorescence differences between normal versus cancer cells.[8] Mary Osborn has been a prominent spokesperson for women in science.[9]

  1. ^ a b c Osborn, Mary (1967). The Determination and Use of Mutagen Specificity in Bacteria Containing Nonsense Codons (PhD thesis). Pennsylvania State University.
  2. ^ Bockrath, R. C.; Osborn, M; Person, S (1968). "Nonsense suppression in a multiauxotrophic derivative of Escherichia coli 15T-: Identification and consequences of an amber triplet in the deoxyribomutase gene". Journal of Bacteriology. 96 (1): 146–53. doi:10.1128/JB.96.1.146-153.1968. PMC 252265. PMID 4874302.
  3. ^ Person, S; Osborn, M (1968). "The conversion of amber suppressors to ochre suppressors". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 60 (3): 1030–7. Bibcode:1968PNAS...60.1030P. doi:10.1073/pnas.60.3.1030. PMC 225156. PMID 4875805.
  4. ^ F. M. Watt. (2004) "Mary Osborn" Journal of Cell Science 117(8):1255-1256.
  5. ^ a b Osborn, Mary (2018). "Mary Osborn". Goettingen Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry.
  6. ^ Klaus Weber and Mary Osborn. (1969) "The Reliability of Molecular Weight Determinations by Dodecyl Sulfate-Polyacrylamide Gel Electrophoresis" Journal of Biological Chemistry 213 (16): 4406-4412.
  7. ^ Mary Osborn, Werner Franke, and Klaus Weber, (1977) "Visualization of a system of filaments 7-10nm thick in cultured cells of an epithelioid line (Pt K2) by immunofluorescence microscopy" Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 74 (6):2490-2494.
  8. ^ a b “Genome Biology: Women in Science.” (2012) Genome Biology 13: 148-154. doi:10.1186/gb-2012-13-3-148.
  9. ^ Silvia Sanides. (2004) "Cell Biologist Multitasks for Women" The Scientist, March 15.