Abu-Elmagd was born in Mansoura, the capital of Dakahlia Governorate in 1952.[5] In 1976 he obtained his medical degree at Mansoura University School of Medicine. In 1987 earned his PhD in liver diseases and portal hypertensive surgery through a joint collaboration between Emory University in Atlanta and Mansoura University.[6] In 1989, he joined the University of Pittsburgh to obtain clinical fellowship in transplantation surgery.[7] In 2001, he was promoted to professor of surgery at the University of Pittsburgh.[4]
In 1989, he was introduced to the field of organ transplantation by the late professor Thomas E. Starzl. , the father of modern transplantation.[8] after that in 1990, Abu-Elmagd and his colleagues launched an intestinal and multivisceral transplant program which performed more than 450 intestine transplants surgery.[9] As of 2020, Abu-Elmagd is professor of surgery at Case-Western Reserve University and the director of the gut rehabilitation and transplantation center at the Cleveland clinic.[10][11][12] With more than 400 peer review scientific publications, as of 2020, his work has been cited close to 20,000 times between 2009 and 2017.[13]
Professional career and contributions
Abu-Elmagd participated in performing the first successful intestinal transplantation under tacrolimus in 1990 at the University of Pittsburgh[14] Later being a participant in the establishment of the clinical utility of tacrolimus in 1991.[15] He was a part of the team which demonstrated the immune-protective effect of the concomitantly transplanted liver and the deleterious effect of DSA on the visceral allograft.[16] His research led to the establishment of Medicare coverage for intestinal and multivisceral transplant in the United States.[17] Abu-Elmagd pioneered or introduced surgical techniques and procedures, for correction of intestinal malrotation in children and adults, replacing the historic Ladd's procedure.[18][19][20][21] Another technique developed by him utilized the patient's own gut for the effective management of gut failure, eliminating the need for intravenous nutrition commonly called TPN. An algorithm with a predictive model was established to guide clinicians, health care providers, payers and patients to achieve the best and most cost effective outcome, eliminating the need for gut transplantation. [better source needed][22]
Abu-Elmagd is the founder of the “Kareem Abu-Elmagd Transplant and Gut Foundation” national institute for patient care, clinical training, medical education and research in Egypt.[23][24]
In 2019 he performed a pro bono operation for a 24-year-old woman from Bangladesh who had been suffering severe abdominal pain for a long time, without any known diagnosis. Her case involved reorganizing her intestines.[25]
