Zena Werb (F / Poland, 1945), Holocaust survivor
Zena Werb (F / Poland, 1945), Holocaust survivor
- KEYWORDS : <Bergen-Belsen> <Liberation of Bergen-Belsen>
Biography
Zena Werb was born at the concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen on March 24, 1945, a few weeks before Liberation (April 15, 1945). Her parents had been forced to separate during World War II, but after reuniting, they moved to Canada in 1948.
Werb earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Toronto and a PhD in cell biology from Rockefeller University in New York City. She conducted postdoctoral research at Strangeways Research Laboratory in Cambridge, United Kingdom. There, she began studying the extracellular matrix, which would provide the foundation for groundbreaking discoveries throughout the course of her career, based on the idea that cells are influenced by their environment.
After completing her postdoctoral research, Werb taught briefly at Dartmouth, then launched her own lab at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). She would spend the rest of her career there, most recently as professor and vice-chair in the Department of Anatomy. She was also the associate director for Basic Science at the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center.