Researcher Jonathan Wall took his PhD exam at the University of Essex in the United Kingdom on December 21, 1994, and started working at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center’s Graduate School of Medicine (GSM) in Knoxville on January 16, 1995.
“I never went home for the graduation,” he says. “I actually had no idea where Knoxville was, and when I arrived, I was happy it wasn’t Nashville, because I am really not a fan of country music.”
Today, Dr. Wall is the assistant dean for Research in the College of Medicine in Knoxville. He is a University Distinguished Professor and the director of the Amyloidosis and Cancer Theranostics program. Systemic amyloidosis occurs when clumps of protein (amyloid) build up in tissues and organs, including the heart, liver, spleen, kidneys, and nerves, causing them to malfunction.
“I came for two years and stayed,” he says. What has kept him in Knoxville for three decades is his passion for his research and what it can mean for individuals with the disease. He is dedicated to the lab he has helped build and the growing team that continues to advance the research.
“I am most proud of being able to work with such an incredible team of people for all the years I have been in the lab,” Dr. Wall says. “Over these years, we have achieved a lot of things, but the ones I am most proud of are those that may, one day, help patients with AL amyloidosis (light chain amyloidosis) and the other devastating types of amyloid disorders.”
Dr. Wall came to Knoxville under the mentorship of Alan Solomon, MD, now professor emeritus in Knoxville, and one of the world’s leading experts on myeloma and amyloidosis. Dr. Wall had wanted to study multiple myeloma but knew nothing about amyloidosis. “He (Dr. Solomon) had a huge program with amazingly gifted people working there,” Dr. Wall says. “My first job in the lab was to uncover the secret of cardiac tropism in patients with AL amyloidosis, something that still hasn’t been solved by anyone to this day.”
Read more at our UTHSC news site.