Sara received her MD in 2001 and PhD in 2004 from the University of Helsinki, Finland. After postdoctoral training at the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Biochemistry she became Group Leader at the MPI for Biology of Ageing in 2010. In 2018 her laboratory moved to the University of Helsinki where she was professor of Cell and Developmental Biology. In 2022 Wickström was appointed as Director of the MPI for Molecular Biomedicine in Münster.

Research in the Wickström lab aims to understand how mammalian epithelial tissues are generated and maintained, and in particular how mechanical forces and cellular interactions integrate single cell behaviours to pattern these structurally extremely robust yet dynamic tissues.