Cell News 01/2020
7
OBITUARY
Doris Wedlich
(1953 – 2020)
Our mentor, colleague and dear friend Doris Wedlich died of cancer on
September 20, 2020. She died shortly after her retirement. With Doris, the
scientific community has lost a successful, open-minded, and active scientist
whose input we will miss.
Doris Wedlich studied biology at the University of Münster with the original
aim of becoming a school teacher. However, after her PhD she moved to
the MPI for Developmental Biology in Tübingen. There she studied develop-
mental and cell biology using the model organism Xenopus laevis. After that,
she established her independent research group at the FU Berlin. Throughout
her career she investigated for example the establishment and function of
cell-cell interactions and cell-matrix adhesions and how these are regulated
during cell migration in early cleavage stages, during gastrulation as well as
neurulation of Xenopus laevis. Other studies focused on “how are these pro-
cesses linked to Wnt signaling and to the protein class of cadherins?” On the
whole, her internationally recognized research was centered at the hub of cell
biology, developmental biology and biochemistry.
Doris held professorships in Ulm and Karlsruhe (KIT). The last phase of her
career concentrated on the governance of science. She became vice president
of her University and was elected onto panels of the German Research Foun-
dation (DFG) and the German Research Council (Wissenschaftsrat). Until her
death, she was actively involved in the organization of a modern and efficient
infrastructure for research data management.
Annette Borchers (Marburg), Dietmar Gradl (Karlsruhe), Michael Kühl (Ulm),
Alexandra Schambony (Erlangen)
