Jon Valla, PhD

JAD profile

Affiliation(s): 

Grand Canyon University

Areas of Interest: 

neuroscience, Alzheimer's disease, mitochondrial function, diagnostics

Biography & Research: 

Dr. Valla received his PhD in Behavioral Neuroscience in 1999 from the University of Texas at Austin and immediately joined the Arizona Alzheimer's Consortium, where his studies focused on energy metabolism changes in a variety of tissues from Alzheimer's disease patients, as well as regional and brain network functional changes in animal models of AD. After postdoctoral work at the Harrington Research Center, Dr. Valla became a faculty research investigator in the Department of Neurology, Barrow Neurological Institute and St. Joseph's Hospital & Medical Center in Phoenix. In 2010, he moved his laboratory to Midwestern University in Glendale, Arizona, as an assistant (and later, associate) professor of biochemistry. In 2015, he accepted a position as Assistant Dean, overseeing all science programs, at Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, where he has led the development of a research capability and the initiation of new undergraduate research programs. Dr. Valla's research interests have spanned functional neuroanatomical correlates of AD, markers of mitochondrial function, mitochondrial deficiencies in AD and related disorders and the utilization of mitochondrial function as a diagnostic or screening tool in suspected AD patients. He holds patents related to the latter and continues to lead efforts to develop a simple, low-cost screening tool for neurodegenerative disease at his lab at Grand Canyon University and through a small spin-off company, Redox Diagnostics.