Zena Werb (24 March 1945 – 16 June 2020) was a professor and the Vice Chair of Anatomy at the University of California, San Francisco.
[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".
[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.
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.