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Damien Wilburn

Damien Wilburn

Damien Wilburn

Assistant Professor

wilburn.120@osu.edu

828 Biological Sciences Building
484 W 12th Avenue Columbus OH 43210

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Areas of Expertise

  • Biochemistry

Damien Wilburn attended the University of Louisville where he received his B.Sc. in Biology and Mathematics in 2009 as well as his Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in 2014. Beginning in 2007 as an undergraduate research scholar and continuing into his PhD as an NSF Graduate Research Fellow, he studied the structural dynamics, translational regulation, and molecular evolution of hypervariable courtship pheromones in lungless salamanders under the mentorship of Drs. Richard and Pamela Feldhoff. This work fostered a broader interest in sexual selection and reproductive biology which motivated his interdisciplinary postdoctoral research in sperm-egg interactions at the University of Washington (UW) under Dr. Willie Swanson, with co-mentorship from Drs. Rachel Klevit (UW; NMR) and Brian Searle (OSU; MS and deep learning). During his postdoctoral tenure, he was awarded a NIGMS F32 fellowship and NICHD K99/R00 career award, in addition to being named the 2017 Outstanding Postdoc Mentor by the UW Graduate School. He joined the OSU Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry in August 2022.