Christine Osborn

Position: PhD Student, Department Molecular and Cell Biology, UCT

Christine is a PhD candidate at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Nicola Illing, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Robert Ingle, and Prof. Dr. Yariv Brotman. She obtained a Master’s degree in Biological Sciences from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, where her thesis focussed on developing aluminium-tolerant mutant lines of sugarcane (Saccharum spp. hybrids) in vitro. As part of the RESIST project, Christine will spend 12 months on secondment at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel. Here she will perform a genome-wide association study where she will identify metabolite quantitative trait loci associated with desiccation tolerance (DT) during the early stages of germination of wild barley (Hordeum spontaneum). She will also characterise and compare the gene regulatory networks and metabolic pathways that underpin DT in wild barley and the resurrection plant Xerophyta schlechteri as part of her PhD.