PROF ELMI MULLER
Photo: Supplied
What is your field of specialty, and could you please give a brief explanation of it?
I am a transplant surgeon performing kidney and liver transplants from deceased and living donors. My research focuses on clinical outcomes of transplanted patients, the impact of HIV in the context of transplantation as well as other issues in the field like organ trafficking, access to transplantation care and I was the first surgeon in the world to transplant kidneys from HIV-positive patients to HIV-positive recipients. My work played a leading role in the Declaration of Istanbul Group, where I collaborated as a clinician-researcher on the African continent on issues of organ trafficking, regulation, ethics and training. I played a pivotal position as an African-based clinician-scholar in international efforts to deal with issues relating to organ regulation.
How would you say your research contributes to the concept of “research for impact”?
Based on my substantial research to plan these procedures, my performance of these surgeries was a world-leading event. I published the first article ever with mid-term data documenting the outcomes of HIV-positive to HIV-positive transplantation. I also worked on important research questions in the field of transplantation: rejection, drug interaction, as well as recurrence of HIV-associated nephropathy in the transplanted kidney. It is also important to note the role and impact that the use of marginal donor organs played in the context of the larger transplantation field. The increasing use of high-risk donors in many parts of the world opened possibilities to expand the donor pools worldwide. Shifting ‘the parameters of the possible’ in transplantation, has also entailed adopting a leading role in fashioning an interdisciplinary thrust to surgically based research that is unique in the world.
What does attaining an A-rating mean to you professionally, and personally?
This rating recognised the unique position and research output of a clinician researcher who addressed a complex health system problem in a middle-income country impacting on practices in the rest of the world.
What do you enjoy most about your job and what are the aspects that you find challenging?
I love making a difference to people and patients. I love improving systems to make healthcare more accessible.
What is the biggest piece of advice that you would give early-career researchers and those who are aspiring to become leaders in their respective research fields?
If you do the things you enjoy and love you will be successful. Also choose the right partner and look after yourself!
What do you do for fun (apart from research!)?
Cooking, gardening, traveling, spend time with my family. I am an extrovert – I love talking!
Prof Elmi Muller is a transplant surgeon and the Dean of the Faculty of Healthcare and Medicine at Stellenbosch University. She is an international leader in the healthcare sector and President of the international Transplantation Society (TTS). She holds clinical as well as business qualifications in South Africa and England, as well as a fellowship in the USA. She had been the chair of the Declaration of Istanbul Custodian group, the South African Transplant Society and served on the World Health Organization Transplantation Taskforce.
Prof. Muller was the first surgeon in the world to transplant kidneys from HIV-positive patients to HIV-positive recipients and has published extensively on this topic. The increasing use of high-risk donors opened possibilities to expand donor pools worldwide.
She has also done extensive research on issues around organ trafficking and is one of a few clinician-researchers on the African continent to have worked on regulation, legislation, ethics and training in this field. It is her pivotal position as an African-based clinician-scholar that has catapulted her into the midst of international efforts to deal with issues relating to organ regulation.
She holds an A1 rating for research with the National Research Foundation of South Africa.