College News
A balancing act:
MD-PhD student prepares for a
future at the bench and bedside
28 | F LO R I DA DA P HYS H Y S I C IAN
I A N
BY TYLER FRANCISCHINE
4
Juggling multiple research projects and leadership roles on top of a graduatelevel
course load might scare off some, but for fourth-year MD-PhD student Mat
Sebastian, variety is the spice of life.
Sebastian, in the second year of his graduate training within the Lillian S. Wells
department of neurosurgery, says he chose to study at UF because of the many
options the MD-PhD Training Program affords in research, clinical experience and
student organizations.
“I came here because I knew I wanted to become a physician-scientist. I wanted
to help real patients with my discoveries. UF offers a very unique program. As
first-year medical students in the MD-PhD program, you learn research with real
human subjects. That just doesn’t happen elsewhere,” he says.
Sebastian’s passion for research blossomed while he attended a magnet
boarding high school that partners its students with universities to complete
research projects. After attending the University of South Carolina, he spent
two years in Bethesda, Maryland, as a post-baccalaureate fellow for the National
Institutes of Health.
“As a high school student, it was incredible to answer questions that no o one had
the answers to,” he says.
Sebastian spends most days in various labs throughout the UF College of
Medicine campus. In addition to his research with human subjects under der Mark
Brantly, MD ‘79, Sebastian’s graduate research projects include investigating
ating
novel therapies for glioblastoma and characterizing the role of genes whose
whose
roles haven’t yet been described. Another project focuses on breast cancer.ncer.
Sebastian works closely with his mentor, chief of neuro-oncology David
d
Tran, MD, PhD, at the McKnight Brain Institute. Sebastian says Tran is
charismatic, encouraging and full of advice.
“The most ideal situation in graduate school is finding a mentor you
connect with and finding a project you can enjoy working on,” he says.
“I was lucky enough to find both.”
Tran says Sebastian is a collaborative and helpful presence on his
research team.
“It’s a great pleasure to have Mat in the lab. He’s very smart, thorough
and very creative in his thinking,” he says. “He’s functioning at a very
senior level for someone at this stage in his career.”
When he’s not in the lab, Sebastian is working to perfect the student
experience through involvement in multiple committees and
organizations. He currently sits on the UF MD-PhD Program Executive
Committee, the UF College of Medicine Student Advocacy Committee and
the UF Graduate Student Council.
“As a student, you can truly bring about change. We have faculty at the UF College
of Medicine that are very receptive to ideas put forth by students,” he says. “And we
as students are constantly motivating each other. The esprit de corps here at UF is
making us better scientists and doctors.”
PHOTO BY JESSE S. JONES