Dr. Sebastian Fica, PhD

Biochemist at heart, dabbling in electron microscopy to uncover molecular mechanisms of nifty RNA-protein complexes 🔬🇷🇴🇺🇸🇬🇧🏳️‍🌈

[Dr. Sebastian Fica, PhD @Seb_Fica]

We found a welcoming journal home for our work explaining how the spliceosome toggles between competing conformations during splicing catalysis https://t.co/ptmoInq7VQ

[Dr. Sebastian Fica, PhD @Seb_Fica]

@mjafreeman I was just about to start making a dough for one ... maybe I will until next year 😅

[Dr. Sebastian Fica, PhD @Seb_Fica]

@DuncanAstle Yes few people for 11 am on Sunday, which is good ... also more people wearing masks on the street than I’ve seen normally

[Dr. Sebastian Fica, PhD @Seb_Fica]

Cambridge Lockdown v3 - the winter, unfortunately more scary, edition 😬

[Dr. Sebastian Fica, PhD @Seb_Fica]

Beautiful work from @SteitzLab - I remember hearing about this intriguing mechanism of RNA stabilisation after my seminar at Yale last year; very nice to see this published

[Joan Steitz Lab @SteitzLab]

We are excited to share our @ScienceMagazine study on RNA triple helices led by Seyed Torabi! Here we describe the structure of an RNA element that protects the poly(A) tail through the formation of a 3ʹ-end binding pocket and other RNA interactions.

https://t.co/2ljRHPUBIR

[Joan Steitz Lab @SteitzLab]

We are excited to share our @ScienceMagazine study on RNA triple helices led by Seyed Torabi! Here we describe the structure of an RNA element that protects the poly(A) tail through the formation of a 3ʹ-end binding pocket and other RNA interactions.

https://t.co/2ljRHPUBIR

[Matt Higgins @ParasiteMatt]

Two days left to apply for this program! Come to Oxford to train as a structural biologist....exciting projects, great facilities, outstanding colleagues and supervisors, generous support from @wellcometrust. Why would you not apply?!

[Angela Rayner @AngelaRayner]

I tell you what, you don't hear @BorisJohnson and @MattHancock talking about the £22bn Serco Test and Trace system as the way to control the virus anymore do you?

[Scott Duncan @ScottDuncanWX]

Enormous snow flakes coming down in Northumberland, England today!

Who else could watch this all day?

🎥 @deborahparkin

https://t.co/8Lg4cGLqOI

[Prof Sir Mene Pangalos FRS @MenePangalos]

Some of the reporting by the media really has been atrocious. Instead of trying to help they seem more intent on stirring up an inaccurate story. BMJ urges NYT to correct vaccine 'mixing' article https://t.co/XNxNG6l30s

[Dr. Sebastian Fica, PhD @Seb_Fica]

A rather gloomy start of 2021 in Cambridge 😢 Mask up 😷. Stay safe, help end this pandemic !

[Dr. Sebastian Fica, PhD @Seb_Fica]

@ElyseFischer7 They find that attractant diffusion and cell speed determine accuracy; individual cells may have different speeds determined e.g. by idiosyncratic expression of cytoskeletal proteins or enzymes that create gradient. Hard to know if such expression has evolutionary pressure 🤔

[Dr. Sebastian Fica, PhD @Seb_Fica]

Actual footage of me seeking baked goods during holiday lockdown ... I wonder if my cells express extra sweet taste receptors 😅

[Science Magazine @ScienceMagazine]

Cells are particularly good at solving mazes, according to a Science study from earlier this year, which demonstrates how they are able to navigate long and complicated routes through the body using self-generated chemoattractant gradients: ($) https://t.co/efOssFpFeU

[Dr. Sebastian Fica, PhD @Seb_Fica]

@Hashemyaser4 @ElyseFischer7 @MalettaMax @FlorentWaltz I did a lot of 5 and 10 Å low pass for a review this year 😅. Tempting to buy one to bring all the spliceosomes structures to life. Just have to figure out how to convince Wellcome it’s an appropriate use of grant money 🤔

[Dr. Sebastian Fica, PhD @Seb_Fica]

@ElyseFischer7 @Hashemyaser4 @MalettaMax @FlorentWaltz Looks like 7-8 Å based on the RNA helices 🤔 how much did the printer cost ?

[Dr. Sebastian Fica, PhD @Seb_Fica]

@AdrianoAguzzi “Significant” is always a redundant descriptor if the result is truly significant 🤪

[Epigenetic Hulk @epigenetichulk]

JUST BE CLEAR! EPIGENETIC HULK NOT LADY WISTLEDOWN!

[Dr. Sebastian Fica, PhD @Seb_Fica]

Sadly 1666 was the year when the great fire of London started exactly in the bakery in Pudding Lane ... just a reminder for those placing too much hope on 2021 😬

[Jonathan Healey @SocialHistoryOx]

‘The Year of Our Lorde 1665 hath been such a terrible one for ye plague. I cannot wait for 1666, for which I have especial excitement to trye the newe bakery that hath opened on Pudding Lane.’

Samuel Pepys, Diary Entry, 31 December 1665.

[Jonathan Healey @SocialHistoryOx]

‘The Year of Our Lorde 1665 hath been such a terrible one for ye plague. I cannot wait for 1666, for which I have especial excitement to trye the newe bakery that hath opened on Pudding Lane.’

Samuel Pepys, Diary Entry, 31 December 1665.

[A Cambridge Diary @acambridgediary]

For the first time in its history, Cambridge Market. has been shut down and barricaded - coincidentally on the day of Brexit 'freedom and sovereignty'. I can't think of more ironic metaphor.

[Chromatin Haiku @ChromatinHaiku]

In the beginning...
Miescher's "Nuclein" extract
First chromatin prep

#ChromatinHaiku #1871