12.2019 | THE SCIENTIST 51CAREER TITLES/AWARDS
Professor and Vice-chair, Department of Anatomy,
University of California, San Francisco
Faculty Biologist, Cell and Molecular Biology, Lawrence
Berkeley National Laboratory
E. B. Wilson Medal, American Society for Cell Biology (2007)
Elected Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2003)
Elected Member, Institute of Medicine of the National
Academies (2002)
Greatest Hits
- Revealed that components of the extracellular matrix are
involved in signaling, pioneering the view that cellular
processes such as gene expression and differentiation are
modulated by external cues - Found that metalloproteinases (MMPs) regulate a variety
of biological processes, including embryonic implantation,
development, and blood vessel formation. - Discovered that MMPs are expressed in cancer and that
the overproduction of these molecules can promote tumor
formation and drive malignancy - Helped elucidate the link between inflammation and cancer
was a male, and while faculty at New York University were willing
to meet with her, she was greeted with an attitude of disinterest.
“No one said [they acted this way] explicitly because I was female,
but it was obvious,” Werb recalls.
Although Werb was unable to pursue that work, she
couldn’t shake her interest in proteins. So when she started her
postdoctoral studies in biologist John Dingle’s lab at Strangeways
Research Laboratory in Cambridge, UK, she decided to study
fibroblasts, cells responsible for producing collagen, one of
the main components of the extracellular matrix and the most
abundant protein in the body.
It was at Strangeways that Werb began her influential
research on ECM-degrading MMPs. Werb stumbled upon
these molecules somewhat serendipitously: a postdoc working
at the lab bench next to hers was investigating the biochemical
properties of MMPs, which were fairly new to science at the time,
and Werb wanted to know whether fibroblasts produced them.
She discovered that they did, and this jumpstarted a long line
of experiments that elucidated the functions these proteins have
both inside and outside of the cell.“MMPs weren’t considered all that impressive or interesting,”
says Valerie Weaver, Werb’s University of California, San Francisco
(UCSF) colleague and frequent collaborator. “Zena went into that
area and made it her own.”
Upon completing her postdoc in Dingle’s lab in the mid-
1970s, Werb was offered a job at the nearby MRC Laboratory of
Molecular Biology. But she wanted to return to North America,
so she declined. Soon after, she was offered a temporary assistant
professorship at Dartmouth, so in 1975, she moved back across
the Atlantic. While at Dartmouth, Werb received yet another
job offer, this time from UCSF. A year later, Werb moved to San
Francisco to start her own lab, setting up shop in the university’s
radiobiology department. There, she had the freedom to pursue
whatever projects she wanted. Her lab grew, and so did her list
of publications.I’ve always been someone who, when things
don’t work out, I remember them, but I don’t
dwell on them.... I look for how to go
beyond that.
—Zena Werb, UCSF