Peregrine Osborne’s research addresses the organisation, function and pharmacological regulation of nervous system networks that have visceral sensory or motor functions in the body. After studying zoology and graduating with a BSc(Hons) and PhD from the University of Melbourne, he completed his postdoctoral training at the Vollum Institute (Portland, Oregon, USA).

There, in the laboratory of Alan North FRS, he contributed to important early electrophysiological characterisation of the newly cloned mammalian voltage-gated potassium channels; and then with John Williams continued his training in brain slice electrophysiology and neuropharmacology while studying opioid regulation of the locus coeruleus. His research on opioid neuropharmacology expanded to other brain systems in the laboratory of MacDonald Christie after returning to Australia as a University of Sydney Rolf Edgar Lake Fellow. This was continued as an independent research fellow at the University of Queensland and Prince of Wales Medical Research Institute at the University of New South Wales. He was then recruited as Group Leader to the University of Sydney Pain Management Research Institute, and his research expanded to address biological mechanisms of analgesia and hyperalgesia in the context of chronic pain. There he was a Chief Investigator on a NSW Office for Science and Medical Research Spinal Cord Injury and Other Neurological Conditions Program Grant addressing “Pain following spinal cord injury (SCI): Understanding mechanism to develop treatments”. He also was co-investigator on a study investigating the effects of estrogen on bladder pain funded by the US NIH/NIDDK (PI: J Keast). In 2012, Peregrine relocated to the Department of Anatomy and Neuroscience at the University of Melbourne with his collaborator Janet Keast. Making use of his postgraduate training in autonomic neuroscience combined with his extensive experience studying organisation and function of nerve circuits, his research is now funded by the US NIH Common Fund Program: Stimulating Peripheral Activity to Relieve Conditions (SPARC). This is addressing the functional connectivity of sensory and motor pathway to specific regions of the lower urinary tract. He is also Chair of the Data Standards Committee supporting the open access data resource under development by the SPARC consortium.