The Art of Listening Award honors a caring, receptive health professional in the lives of individuals and families living with genetic conditions.

Frank Lehmann-Horn has a Master’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering and is an MD specializing in neurology and physiology. He received a PhD for his work on muscle disorders caused by defective ion channels. His scientific interest is the basis of membrane excitability in normal and diseased muscle and brain cells. Besides medicine, he is interested in publication ethics. Along with his scientific work and teaching responsibilities, he takes care of many patients with myotonias, periodic paralyses, episodic ataxia, and migraine, as well as individuals susceptible to malignant hyperthermia. His work on muscle fibers from patients with congenital paramyotonia and hyperkalemic periodic paralysis was the first to identify a dysfunction of the voltage-gated sodium channel as underlying cause of these genetic disorders. The muscle channel diseases were the first “Channelopathies,” a term coined during a European Neuromuscular Centre (ENMC) workshop held in Ulm in 1993.

Prior to 1992, Frank worked as a consultant neurologist and served as head of the Clinical Neurophysiology Division of the Department of Neurology at the Technical University in Munich. While there, he set up a muscle physiology laboratory that performed electrophysiological in vitro studies on muscle fibers from patients, as well as the pharmacological in vitro contracture test for the diagnosis of malignant hyperthermia susceptibility. Since the early 1980s, he has built ties with many patients and their families.

In 1992, Frank became a full professor of Physiology and head of the Institute of Applied Physiology at Ulm University, where he teaches the complete spectrum of physiology in lectures, seminars, and practical work for students of the programs in medicine, dentistry, and molecular medicine. He also supervised the MD and PhD programs, and coordinates the graduate school in molecular medicine and an international PhD program sponsored by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and the German Research Foundation (DFG). Additionally, as a full professor, he participates in the administration of Ulm University on various committees, including chairing the Interdisciplinary Center on Medical Research of Ulm University, sponsored by the Federal Ministry of Research (BMBF) from 1996 to 2002.

Frank’s position as head of the Institute of Applied Physiology allows him to do genetic work in addition to in vitro electrophysiology. He has contributed to the work of Thomas Jentsch, finding the chloride channel gene mutated in congenital myotonia. Also, in collaboration with Bertrand Fontaine from Paris, France, he and his co-worker Karin Jurkat-Rott detected the genes responsible for periodic paralyses. Together with Kenneth Ricker from Würzburg, Germany, he identified sodium channel myotonia and subtypes as a clinical and genetic entity besides chloride channel myotonia. He also first described proximal myotonic myopathy (PROMM, DM2) as a second and less severe type of myotonic dystrophy. These results have been published in international journals such as Science, Nature Genetics, Cell, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA (PNAS), and others. Invited reviews appeared in Physiological Reviews, Journal of Clinical Investigations, and others. As Head of the Institute of Applied Physiology, Dr. Lehmann-Horn has no direct responsibilities for patients and his work does not relate to the University Hospital, so all of his work with patients is done during his free time.

In 2005, Frank was awarded the Dr. honoris causa (Dr.h.c.) of the University of Debrecen in Hungary for his scientific collaborations on muscle excitation-contraction coupling and the coordination of two European networks sponsored by the European Union. Recently, he was selected to be the Endowed Research Senior Professor 2008 for Neurosciences of the Hertie Foundation. Currently, he is Chairman of the Ulm Muscle Centre.