Florian P. Thomas, MD, MA, PhD Professor of Neurology & Psychiatry Associate Professor Molecular Virology and Microbiology and Immunology Associate Chief of Staff Saint Louis VA Medical Center Saint Louis University Medical Center 1438 S. Grand Blvd. St. Louis, MO 63104 (314) 977-4800 thomasfp@slu.edu

Dr. Thomas is a 1982 graduate of the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms University in Bonn, Germany, where he also completed a Master's degree in Psychology and a doctoral thesis in Microbiology. From 1983 until 1987 he trained in neurology at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. During the next 3 years he pursued postdoctoral training in neuromuscular diseases and neuroimmunology with Dr. Norman Latov at Columbia University in New York. He then joined the Laboratory for Molecular Biology in the Clinical Research Institute of Montreal at McGill University, where he completed a Ph.D. degree in experimental medicine in 1995 under the tutelage of Dr. Paul Jolicoeur. Concomitantly he engaged in a clinical fellowship in AIDS-Neurology at the Montreal Neurological Institute. He joined the faculty of the department of neurology of Saint Louis University in 1995.

Dr. Thomas is board certified in Neurology by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and in Spinal Cord Injury Medicine by the American Board of Rehabilitation Medicine and Physiatry; he is also a Fellow in the American Academy of Neurology. He serves as the director of multidisciplinary National MS Society affiliated Multiple Sclerosis Centers at Saint Louis University and the St. Louis VA Hospital; the latter is the only the second VA MS center in the country to achieve this status. He is also the director of the Spinal Cord Injury/Dysfunction Service at the Saint Louis VA Hospital, a 32 bed inpatient, 1400 outpatient center whose catchment area encompasses 8 states. His other clinical activities at Saint Louis University and the St. Louis VA Hospital are devoted to hereditary neurological diseases, in particular Charcot-Marie-Tooth neuropathies, and to other autoimmune neurological conditions.  He has been an examiner for the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology.

He is actively involved in community service for patient support groups. He co-founded the St. Louis chapter of The Neuropathy Association, in which he serves as a regional director and on its national scientific advisory board, and the St. Louis chapter of the Charcot-Marie-Tooth Association in which he serves as a member of the national medical advisory board. He is a member of the Clinical Advisory Committee, the Governmental Affairs Committee and the Board of Trustees of the Gateway Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society (NMSS). He is also a member of the Board of Trustees of Paraquad, the Center for Independent Living for the St. Louis Metroplitan Area. He is involved with support groups for people with MS and Spinal Cord Injury/Dysfunction patients at the VA. His efforts on behalf of people with MS were recently recognized with the NMSS Pathlighter Award and with a Congressional Proclamation. He is listed in Best Doctors in America.

His research focuses on multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injury and dysfunction, sexual health, pain management, rehabilitation, neurogenetics, neuromuscular conditions, history of medicine, the neurology of AIDS and vitamin deficiencies. He is a member of the Consortium's for Spinal Cord Medicine Clinical Practice Guideline Development Panel for Sexuality and Reproductive Health.  With collaborators in Belgium and Bulgaria he identified a novel disease gene for dominant intermediate Charcot-Marie-Tooth type C neuropathy (Nat Gen 2006;38:197-202). Other research has focused on the use of IVIG in chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (Lancet Neurology 2008;7:136-144) and testerone levels in men with spinal cord injury (Am J Phys Med Rehabil 2008;9:758-67). He participates in the NIH sponsored multi-center MS Avonex-Copaxone combination trial CombiRx and in the multicenter trial of Laquinimod, a MS drug taken by mouth.

Since beginning his tenure at the Spinal Cord Injury/Dysfunction Service he has developed a sexual health clinic, a pain management center, an art therapy program for people with MS, a vocational rehabilitation and a tobacco cessation program.

Dr. Thomas sees patients at the VA Medical Center and the Doctor's Office Building of Saint Louis University

Dr. Thomas can be reached by e-mail at thomasfp@slu.edu.