Michael R. Franz, MD, PhD

Dr. Franz is Director of the Clinical Electrophysiology Lab at the Washington DC VA hospital and a Professor of Pharmacology at Georgetown University Medical Center. Dr. Franz graduated from the Kiel University (Germany) in 1974 with a degree in Medicine and in 1976 with a PhD degree in Neurophysiology. He completed his internal medicine and cardiology/electrophysiology training in Germany and in 1981 invented the contact-electrode monophasic action potential catheter. This catheter is used to explore cellular electrophysiology in the human heart for a better understanding of arrhythmias, both ventricular and atria.

 From 1981 to 1983, Dr. Franz was a research fellow at the Cardiology Department as well as the Biomedical Engineering Department of the Johns Hopkins Hospital. In 1985, Dr. Franz was recruited by Stanford University to co-direct the Arrhythmia lab, and in 1991 joined Dr. Woosley at Georgetown University in Washington, DC.

 Dr. Franz has published over 200 peer-reviewed papers and is the editor of two books (Monophasic Action Potentials: Bridging Cell to Bedside and Cardiac Mechano-Electrical Feedback and Arrhythmias: From Pipette to Patient). He is an editorial board member for the Journal of Cardiovascular Electrophysiology and HeartRhythm, and a frequent peer reviewer for all major cardiology journals and the intramural NIH Data Monitoring and Safety Board. Current research of Dr. Franz, using both mouse and human studies, is directed at a better understanding of congenital and drug-induced arrhythmias, specifically the Torsade de Pointes arrhythmias in Long QT Syndrome.