Kevin McCusker ’02

Director, Compound Screening Biology
PTC Therapeutics
Mountain View, California

At Valparaiso, Kevin majored in biochemistry and humanities. Upon graduation, he attended graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley, earning his Ph.D. in biochemistry in 2009. After a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco, he joined Edison Pharmaceuticals in 2013 as a research scientist. While at Edison, Kevin focused on the biochemistry of a family of enzymes implicated in pediatric mitochondrial disorders, characterizing the effects of drug molecules on those enzymes to develop treatments for patients suffering from these debilitating diseases. Now at PTC Therapeutics, he oversees a group of research scientists and manages several drug discovery projects across early stages of development. Kevin and his wife Jill Van Dalen ’00 reside in Hayward, California, and enjoy exploring the many outdoor recreational opportunities afforded by the San Francisco Bay Area.