Kareem Abu-Elmagd, M.D., Ph.D., is professor of surgery at the University of Pittsburgh and director of the Intestinal Rehabilitation and Transplantation Center at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center's (UPMC) Thomas E. Strazl Transplantation Institute. As such, he leads a program that has performed more than 220 intestine transplants since May 1990 — the largest experience of any center in the world.

Dr. Abu-Elmagd is widely recognized for having developed and standardized many of the surgical techniques and post-transplant management approaches that have made transplants of the intestine alone or in combination with the liver and other organs both feasible and increasingly more successful.

Dr. Abu-Elmagd received his medical degree from the Mansoura University School of Medicine in Mansoura, Egypt, in 1976, and completed his internship there in 1978. Between 1978 and 1982, he completed two surgical residencies: at Hurghada General Hospital in Hurghada, Egypt, and at Mansoura University Hospital. During this time, he also was studying for a master's degree in surgery, which he received in 1981 from Mansoura University. Following his residencies, Dr. Abu-Elmagd completed a research fellowship in immunology at Wayne State University in Detroit, Mich., and a two-year clinical research fellowship at Emory University in Atlanta, Ga. In 1987, he earned a doctorate in surgery awarded jointly by Mansoura and Emory universities.

Dr. Abu-Elmagd arrived at the University of Pittsburgh in 1989, to complete a clinical fellowship in transplantation surgery. He joined the University of Pittsburgh faculty in 1990, as an assistant professor of surgery. Despite already being an accomplished surgeon, between 1995 and 1997, Dr. Abu-Elmagd took a leave of absence to complete a surgical residency at UPMC in order to be certified by the American Board of Surgery. Upon completion of the residency, he rejoined the faculty of the University of Pittsburgh as an associate professor of surgery, and in 2001, he was promoted to professor of surgery. He is widely published and has 23 book chapters to his credit. He is a frequent presenter at major scientific congresses and has given more than 100 invited lectures.

Memberships in societies include the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, International Liver Transplantation Society, American Medical Association, American Society of Transplant Surgeons, American Society of Transplantation, Transplantation Society and American Surgical Society. More recently, he was invited to join the prestigious American Surgical Association, an honor usually reserved for older, more established surgeons. He also is an active participant in local activities for the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America.