Sebastian completed his PhD at the University of Cambridge in 2006 on energy transfer processes in organic semiconductors. After an additional year as a junior research fellow in Prof. Friend's group in Cambridge, he arrived in Sweden in 2007 to investigate conformational dynamics of membrane proteins.
Since 2011 he has turned independent with funding through an Assistant Professorship position, sponsored by the Swedish Research Council, a 'Future Research Leader' research award from the Swedish Foundation of Strategic Research and an ERC starting grant. The goal of his research activities are to explore molecular structural dynamics (see projects).
Andrea graduated from the University of Florence where he first did his bachelors in biology and then continued studying cellular and molecular biology for his master. For his master project, he worked on the effects of Protein C mutation in cardiac tissue. For his PhD he is investigating the structural changes in eukaryotic photolyase upon light activation. His current plan is to capture snapshots of the protein in motion using serial crystallography to complement data from previous experiments.
Amke joined the group in 2018, the same year she graduated the Kiel university with a master in Business Chemistry. Her master project involved the studying of the relaxation of nucleic acid chromophore purine after photoexcitation using ultrafast vibrational spectroscopy. In her PhD project she applies time resolved x-ray solution scattering to observe the movements of atoms during light-initiated reactions and investigate the solvent effect on reactions. The system she is currently working with is triiodide which dissociates upon excitation with UV light.
ll