Frank Uhlmann studied biochemistry and physiological chemistry at the University of Tübingen in Germany before joining Jerry Hurwitz’s laboratory at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York for his PhD studies. Frank then moved to the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP) in Vienna, Austria, to work as a postdoctoral researcher with Kim Nasmyth.

In 2000, he established a research laboratory at what was then the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in London. He has remained there since, while the institute became part of Cancer Research UK and now the Francis Crick Institute. His work on chromosome segregation was recognised with the EMBO Gold Medal in 2006.