Will Dampier

Will Dampier is an Associate Professor in the Department of Microbiology & Immunology at Drexel University College of Medicine. He holds a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Drexel University (2010). His research focuses on HIV genetics, computational biology, and CRISPR-based therapies. Dr. Dampier teaches courses in Applied Statistics for Biomedical Sciences and Structural Bioinformatics, emphasizing machine learning and genomic data analysis.

His work explores HIV genetic variation, CRISPR/Cas9 applications for curing HIV, and improving computational tools like Python's scikit-learn and Glue visualization. He co-directs Structural Bioinformatics and collaborates on patents for HIV excision therapies. His lab uses third-generation sequencing (e.g., Nanopore) to study viral quasispecies and develops bioinformatics tools such as CRSeek and GOATOOLS.

Key research areas include CRISPR gRNA design for targeting HIV variants, HIV-Tat protein correlations with neurocognitive disorders, and analyzing viral sequence relationships with host proteins. He has published extensively on HIV cure strategies, gene editing safety, and viral genetic diversity.