As the quote suggests, Sebastian M. Fica - the group leader - is an avid experimentalist. He is pursuing his passion for biochemistry and structural biology as a Sir Henry Dale Fellow in the Department of Biochemistry at The University of Oxford.
Short biography
Sebastian was born in Romania and moved to the United States in 2003 to pursue undergraduate studies.
He obtained his Bachelor of Arts degree from Skidmore College in 2007 in molecular biology and government. He then joined the labs of Jonathan Staley and Joseph Piccirilli at The University of Chicago, where he studied the catalytic mechanism of pre-mRNA splicing. Here he showed that the spliceosome active site is formed by RNA and obtained a doctorate (PhD) in cell and molecular biology in 2013.
In 2014 he moved to the United Kingdom for postdoctoral work in the group of Kiyoshi Nagai at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology. Here he learned electron cryo-microscopy and solved some of the first structures of yeast and human spliceosomes stalled during the catalytic stage of pre-mRNA splicing. During his postdoctoral work he was supported by an EMBO Long Term Fellowship (2014-2016) and a Marie Sklodowska Curie Fellowship from the EU (2016-2018).
In 2020 he was awarded a Sir Henry Dale Fellowship from the Wellcome Trust and Royal Society, which will provide support until 2026 to establish an independent research group in Oxford.
Awards
The 2020 RNA Society/ Scaringe Post-doctoral Award, from The RNA Society (2019)
The Departmental Award for Outstanding Performance in the Field of Cell and Molecular Biology, from The University of Chicago (2014)
The Best Dissertation Award, from The University of Chicago (2014)
College appointments
Since May 2020, Sebastian is a Senior Demy at Magdalen College, Oxford. His college page can be found here.
