Interview with Sandra Iden – President of the German Society for Cell Biology

Sandra Iden is Professor and Chair of Cell and Developmental Biology at Saarland University in Homburg, Germany. Her research focuses on cell–cell communication in epithelial tissue homeostasis, with a major emphasis on understanding the mechanisms that control cell polarity and cytoarchitecture, and heterotypic interactions between epithelial cells and non-epithelial tissue-resident cell types. Sandra is currently President of the German Society for Cell Biology (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Zellbiologie; DGZ), which is celebrating its 50th anniversary year in 2025. We spoke with Sandra over Zoom to learn about her career path, her journeys into leadership in science, and how she thinks the DGZ and other scientific societies can best serve the research community today and into the future.