Zena Werb
Born(1945-03-24)March 24, 1945
KZ Bergen-Belsen
Died16 June 2020(2020-06-16) (aged 75)
San Francisco, California, United States
Education
Known forStudy of the extracellular matrix
AwardsE.B. Wilson Medal, 2007
Scientific career
FieldsCell biology
InstitutionsUniversity of California, San Francisco
ThesisDynamics of macrophage membrane cholesterol (1971)
Doctoral advisorZanvil Cohn
Websitewerblab.ucsf.edu

Zena Werb (24 March 1945 – 16 June 2020) was a professor and the Vice Chair of Anatomy at the University of California, San Francisco. She was also the co-leader of the Cancer, Immunity, and Microenvironment Program at the Hellen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center and a member of the Executive Committee of the Sabre-Sandler Asthma Basic Research Center at UCSF.[1][2] Her research focused on features of the microenvironment surrounding cells, with particular interest in the extracellular matrix and the role of its protease enzymes in cell signaling.[3][4]

Early life and education

Zena Werb was born in Germany in 1945 in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp (KZ Bergen-Belsen), a few weeks before the camp was liberated. Both of her parents, who were Polish-Jewish, survived the war, with her father having fled to Italy. Her family was able to reunite at a refugee camp in Italy in 1947;[5] they emigrated to Canada in 1948, where Werb was raised on a farm in Ontario.[6][7] Though her father was previously a mathematician, he became a farmer.[5]

Werb received her B.Sc. in Biochemistry from the University of Toronto in 1966, having changed her major from geophysics after being told there were no accommodations for women at a field site.[6][8] She received her Ph.D. in Cell Biology from Rockefeller University in 1971, working under the supervision of Zanvil Cohn on a thesis titled "Dynamics of macrophage membrane cholesterol".[9] After graduation she worked at the Strangeways Research Laboratory in Cambridge, United Kingdom as a postdoctoral fellow with John T. Dingle from 1971 to 1973 and as a research associate from 1973 to 1975.[2][7][10]

Academic career

Werb spent a year as a visiting assistant professor at Dartmouth Medical School in New Hampshire before moving to the University of California, San Francisco in 1976, where she became a full professor in 1983.[2][7][10] She served as president of the American Society for Cell Biology in 2004.[11] She spoke of the value of academic sabbaticals, and in 2007 she spent a sabbatical at the Max Planck Institute through an Alexander von Humboldt Research Award.[12][13]

Werb wrote and gave interviews on her experiences as a woman in science, describing the environment in which she trained as sexist and noting that, despite improvements in women's representation in the sciences since her training, sexism "has gone underground"[6] and low representation of women in top positions remains a problem.[14][15]

She was a member of the Editorial Board for Developmental Cell.

Awards and honors

Research

Werb's research group studies the effects on cells of the extracellular matrix microenvironment and its component proteases, particularly matrix metalloproteinases. The group also investigates the role of these effects on biological processes such as stem cell maturation and neoplasia, for which they use breast cancer in mice as a model.[3][8] Her work in establishing the active role of the ECM in normal cell signaling and in cancer progression is widely recognized as highly influential.[7][21]

References

  1. ^ "About Cancer, Immunity, and Microenvironment". University of California, San Francisco. Retrieved 4 July 2015.
  2. ^ a b c "Zena Werb, Ph.D." University of California, San Francisco. Retrieved 4 July 2015.
  3. ^ a b "Research". Werb Lab. University of California, San Francisco. Retrieved 4 July 2015.
  4. ^ Littlepage, Laurie E.; Ewald, Andrew J.; Alexander, Caroline; Casbon, Amy-Jo; Lu, Pengfei; Kessenbrock, Kai; Provot, Sylvain; Phillips, Joanna J.; Kouros-Mehr, Hosein; Chan, Matilda; Welm, Bryan (2020-08-10). "Zena Werb (1945–2020)". Developmental Cell. 54 (3): 299–301. doi:10.1016/j.devcel.2020.07.012. ISSN 1534-5807.
  5. ^ a b Egeblad, Mikala (2021-03-04). "Zena Werb (1945–2020): Matrix Metalloproteinases, Microenvironments, and Mentoring". Annual Review of Cancer Biology. 5 (1): 1–16. doi:10.1146/annurev-cancerbio-081320-114426. ISSN 2472-3428.
  6. ^ a b c Watt, F. M. (22 February 2004). "Zena Werb". Journal of Cell Science. 117 (6): 803–804. doi:10.1242/jcs.01031. PMID 14963020.
  7. ^ a b c d e "ASCB Profiles" (PDF). American Society for Cell Biology. Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 July 2015. Retrieved 4 July 2015.
  8. ^ a b Kain, K. H. (10 August 2010). "The extracellular matrix and disease: an interview with Zena Werb". Disease Models & Mechanisms. 3 (9–10): 513–516. doi:10.1242/dmm.006338. PMID 20699476. S2CID 116090690.
  9. ^ As cited in: Werb, Zena; Cohn, Zanvil A. (1971). "Cholesterol metabolism in the macrophage. I. The regulation of cholesterol exchange". The Journal of Experimental Medicine. 134 (6): 1545–69. doi:10.1084/jem.134.6.1545. PMC 2139099. PMID 5126640.
  10. ^ a b "Zena Werb". Werb Lab. University of California, San Francisco. Retrieved 4 July 2015.
  11. ^ "ASCB Presidents". American Society for Cell Biology. Retrieved 4 July 2015.
  12. ^ Hoag, Hannah (16 August 2007). "The seven-year itch". Nature. 448 (7155): 834–835. doi:10.1038/nj7155-834a.
  13. ^ a b c d "Zena Werb, Ph.D." UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. Retrieved 4 July 2015.
  14. ^ Neugebauer, Karla M. (2006). "Keeping Tabs on the Women: Life Scientists in Europe". PLOS Biology. 4 (4): e97. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0040097. PMC 1435409. PMID 16602822.
  15. ^ Werb, Z. (15 November 2010). "The Joy of a Career in Cell Biology". Molecular Biology of the Cell. 21 (22): 3764–3766. doi:10.1091/mbc.E10-05-0413. PMC 2982121. PMID 21079003.
  16. ^ "AACR-Women in Cancer Research Charlotte Friend Memorial Lectureship: Past Recipients". American Association for Cancer Research (AACR). Retrieved 2020-02-09.
  17. ^ "Faculty Research Lecture in Basic Science 44th | UCSF Academic Senate". senate.ucsf.edu. Retrieved 2020-02-09.
  18. ^ "E.B. Wilson Medal". ASCB. Retrieved 2020-02-09.
  19. ^ "WICB Awards". American Society for Cell Biology. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 4 July 2015.
  20. ^ "Zena Werb receives UCSF 2015 Mentoring Award". Department of Anatomy. University of California, San Francisco. 10 April 2015. Archived from the original on 5 July 2015. Retrieved 4 July 2015.
  21. ^ Egeblad, M; Werb, Z (March 2002). "New functions for the matrix metalloproteinases in cancer progression". Nature Reviews. Cancer. 2 (3): 161–74. doi:10.1038/nrc745. PMID 11990853. S2CID 7990149.

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