About

My name is Andrew Kocab, and I want to welcome you to my website. I created CuriousKocab.com to capture my thoughts and ideas as I feed my curiosity and learn new things.

I like learning how things work and can find something interesting in most things. I imagine that my wide-ranging curiosity will lead to posts on diverse topics. Perhaps this eclectic collection may one day lead you or me to a spark of inspiration for a great new idea.

While the topics may vary, the overall direction of the website may tilt toward science and start ups, since this is my background. My desire to learn how things work led me to grad school, where I earned my PhD in immunology from the University of Michigan in the lab of Colin Duckett. I studied molecular signaling that occurs within cells, and this signaling was involved in processes like cell death and inflammation, important components of a variety of healthy and disease states. As you can imagine, cell signaling can be an incredibly complex puzzle. I loved it.

While I went to Michigan for grad school, my college sports allegiance rests with my undergraduate institution, the University of Notre Dame (Go Irish!), where I received a BS and majored in biochemistry.

Since finishing my PhD, I’ve worked for a biotech start up, ONL Therapeutics, which was spun out of the University of Michigan. The company is developing drugs for protecting vision in patients with retinal diseases. While I knew nothing about the eye when I joined the company, I’ve been able to learn a ton about the eye, as well as about life in a start up, drug development, and numerous other things. I currently manage the company’s research activities and have been able to contribute my knowledge of immunology and cell signaling to the company, which has been rewarding and productive.

Thanks again for visiting CuriousKocab.com. If you have any questions or suggestions for topics, please feel free to contact me.