Professorship for Sandra Iden at Saarland University

09.12.2019

Sandra Iden, currently CECAD Research Group Leader, recently accepted a tenured professorship for cell and developmental biology at Saarland University, Faculty of Medicine, Campus Homburg, commencing January 2020. Sandra Iden studied biochemistry in Hannover. For her PhD, she investigated the role of adhesion molecules for epithelial and endothelial cell-cell contacts at the University Hospital Muenster. As postdoctoral researcher at The Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam she studied molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying cancer formation and progression. In 2011, she joined CECAD to establish her laboratory with focus on control of mammalian cell polarity and its implication in tissue homeostasis and disease. Sandra and her team could identify mechanisms how disturbed polarity signaling affects skin stem cell maintenance and differentiation, cellular crosstalk of various skin resident cell types, and processes underlying the formation and progression of different cancers including melanoma. At Saarland University, the Iden lab will expand its ongoing efforts to dissect both intrinsic and non-autonomous mechanisms that safeguard mammalian tissue integrity in development, homeostasis and disease. Currently there are still openings for young scientists interested to join the team in Saarland.

Carien Niessen, scientific coordinator of CECAD, wishes Sandra Iden all the best: "We congratulate Sandra Iden with her new position at the University of Saarland as Professor for Cell-and Developmental Biology at the Medical Faculty in Homburg. Although we are sad to see Sandra Iden leave, we are very happy that her very successful and productive time in CECAD enabled her to obtain a permanent Professorship elsewhere. Fortunately for us, Sandra will in 2020 still spend 20% of her time here at CECAD and in Cologne and I am sure that her ties to CECAD and Cologne will also lead to many future fruitful collaborations with CECAD groups. We wish her tremendous success and all the best, both professionally and privately."