• Donors/Contributors
• Conferences
• Research
• Contact Us

• Neurology Home
• Facilities
  • University of Utah Hospital
  • Primary Children's Medical Center
  • Wahlen Veterans Administration Hospital
  • Eccles Institute of Human Genetics
  • Moran Eye Center
  • Eccles Health Sciences Library
  • Laboratories
  • Huntsman Cancer Institute & Hospital
  • Clinical Neurosciences Center
• Residency Training
  • Letter from the Chair
  • Letter from the Director
  • Residency Overview
  • Application Information
  • Meet Our Current Residents
  • Current Resident & Fellow Research
• Fellowship Training
  • Clinical Neurophysiology
  • Fellowship Training
  • Neuro-Opthalmology
  • Neuro-Genetics
  • Meet Our Current Fellows
  • Stroke / Neurovascular Fellowship
  • Neurocritical Care
• Student Electives
• Faculty & Staff
• Specialties
  • Peripheral Neuropathy Research Group
  • Pediatric Motor Disorders
  • Sleep Wake Center
  • Center for Alzheimer's Care
• Salt Lake Living
• Neurology Alumni

Christopher Jones, MD, PhD

Associate Professor of Neurology

Medical Director, Sleep-Wake Center

Dr. Christopher Jones is an Associate Professor in the University of Utah Department of Neurology and Medical Director of the University Health Care Sleep-Wake Center. He received his PhD in Zoology at the University of Maine studying the rhythm of cell division in protozoa and subsequently acquired his interest in the sleep-wake rhythm at Harvard Medical School. After his Neurology residency training at the University of Utah and a year of working with the Division of Pulmonary Medicine in a one-bed sleep apnea laboratory, Dr Jones became Medical Director of the Sleep-Wake Center in 1988. The Sleep-Wake Center is now a multi-departmental 6-bed unit with three physicians, two physician assistants, a sleep psychologist, and a Hospital staff of 20.

In 1992 Dr Jones discovered the first reported kindred of people with autosomal-dominant Advanced Sleep Phase Syndrome. His subsequent collaboration with the Fu & Ptacek Laboratory in the Neurology Department at the University of California San Francisco facilitated publications of the first and second autosomal-dominant human gene mutations for ASPS. Subsequent work by the Fu & Ptacek Laboratory has proposed new molecular-genetic mechanisms of sleep-wake regulation. More recently, Dr Jones’ evaluation of a third kindred has led to recognition of a variant of ASPS with a new mutation that promises to shed light on the molecular-genetic overlap between sleep-wake regulation and mood-behavioral regulation.  His current research is supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health administered through UCSF and includes characterization of a kindred with autosomal-dominant delayed sleep phase.  Dr Jones is the recipient of the 2002 American Academy of Neurology Sleep Science Award.

Selected Publications

• Jones CR, Campbell SS, Zone SE, Cooper F, DeSano A, Murphy PJ, Jones B, Czajkowski L, Ptacek LJ. (1999). Familial advanced sleep-phase syndrome: A short-period circadian rhythm variant in humans. Nat Med, 5(9), 1062-5.
• Toh KL, Jones CR, He Y, Eide EJ, Hinz WA, Virshup DM, Ptacek LJ, Fu YH. (2001). An hPer2 phosphorylation site mutation in familial advanced sleep phase syndrome. Science, 291(5506), 1040-3.
• Xu Y, Padiath QS, Shapiro RE, Jones CR, Wu SC, Saigoh N, Saigoh K, Ptacek LJ, Fu YH. (2005). Functional consequences of a CKIdelta mutation causing familial advanced sleep phase syndrome. Nature, 434(7033), 640-4.