Werner Franke

Drug abuse in sports Franke is considered to have been a leading expert in performance-enhancing drugs and one of the most ardent critics of drug abuse in sports. Together with his wife, Brigitte Berendonk, once an Olympic discus thrower and shot putter, he fought against drug abuse in sports. He assisted his wife in researching the 1991 book Doping: From Research to Deceit, uncovering the systematic use of doping by East German athletes.

Franke defended cyclist Danilo Hondo after the banned substance Carphedon was found in his blood during the 2005 Vuelta a Murcia. Franke argued that the amount found in his blood was "laughably small" and that "you can only get this medication through certain channels in Russia or China, where it is used by the military and the space flight programs."

During an interview on 3 August 2006 with German regional television channel , Franke claimed that cyclist Jan Ullrich purchased about €35,000 worth of doping products a year from Eufemiano Fuentes based on documents uncovered in the Operación Puerto doping case. A German court imposed a gag order on Franke after it found there was not enough evidence to link Ullrich to doping. However, that case returned to court with DNA analysis linking Ullrich to nine bags of blood seized in the Puerto case, and eventually after four years, Franke won the case.

Memberships 1977 European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) 1988 Honorary Member of the American Association for Anatomy

Works Cell biology Franke is author and co-author of 660 original articles in the field of cell and molecular biology.

Doping