Elmi Muller

Elmi Muller has been a full-time medical specialist at Groote Schuur Hospital and UCT Private Academic Hospital since 2007. Since 2007 she has been involved in many organ transplant-related outreach and education programmes for the public and the medical profession in South Africa. She is also an active participant in the International Society of Nephrology's Educational Ambassador program and has provided training and teaching in the field of Transplantation and Surgery in several African countries. Elmi has been co-chairing the Declaration of Istanbul Custodian Group between 2014 and 2018. Muller co-chaired the 2018 edition of the Declaration.

She pioneered an HIV positive-to-positive organ transplantation at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town. This was the first program in the world to use HIV positive donors for HIV positive recipients. The outcomes of these transplants had been published in the New England Journal of Medicine HIV-Positive–to–HIV-Positive Kidney Transplantation — Results at 3 to 5 Years. Her work had been featured in many journals:A Source of Treatment for Those Who Were (Almost) Lost: Human Immunodeficiency Virus–Positive to Human Immunodeficiency Virus–Positive Kidney Transplantation—Results at 3 to 5 Years, Transplantation: Promising outcomes of HIV-positive-to-HIV-positive kidney transplantation, Hopeful act: A rebel transplants organs from HIV-positive donors, People in Transplantation The Lancet also published a profile on her in 2012 called Elmi Muller: bending rules, changing guidelines, making history.

After graduating with a M.B. Ch.B. from the University of Pretoria in 1995, Muller was awarded a M.Med. (Surgery) in 2007, as well as PhD (Surgery) degree in 2018 from the University of Cape Town (UCT).

A member of the UK's Royal College of Surgeons and a Fellow of the College of Surgeons in South Africa, Muller was awarded Fellowship of the American College of Surgeons in 2013.

Muller received the Transplantation Society's Women in Transplant Hero Award in 2016 and became an honorary member of the European Surgical Association in the same year. In 2014 she was the recipient of CEO Magazine’s Most Influential Woman in Business and Government: Africa award, and was the winner of the health care category of the Most Influential Women in Africa in 2013. She and was the winner of the Checkers Shoprite Woman of the Year award in the health care section for 2011. (Interview

Muller is involved in creating equitable organ allocation systems in South Africa, setting up guidelines and processes for kidney and liver allocation in the Western Cape and the rest of the country.

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