Prof. Dr. Sara A. Wickström
Curriculum Vitae
Professor Sara A. Wickström M.D., Ph.D., started her career as a medical student at the University of Helsinki. She completed an MD/PhD programme after her studies, graduating with a 'Medical Doctor' degree in 2001 and a Ph.D. in 2004. From 2005 to 2010 she was a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried and subsequently led a Max Planck research group at the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing in Cologne for ten years. Most recently, she was Professor of the Cell and Developmental Biology Laboratory at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Helsinki and the Helsinki Institute of Life Science. She has been Director at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine since the end of 2021.
Research Interests
Sara Wickström and her team are looking at how tissue stem cells communicate with each other and their microenvironment to coordinate their proliferation, movement and maturation to create specific tissue structures. The researchers are thus gaining insights into how tissues can remain healthy throughout a lifetime. In addition, clues to new ways of fighting cancer are emerging.