Liesl Zuhlke

Liesl Johanna Zühlke is the Vice-President of the South African Medical Research Council, Extramural Research and Internal Portfolio. She is a South African paediatric cardiologist who specialises in paediatric and rheumatic heart disease. She works at the Red Cross War Memorial Children's Hospital and Groote Schuur Hospital, and was the first woman in her country to be appointed as a full professor in paediatric cardiology. Her husband, Alexander Zühlke, is a plastic surgeon, and they have two sons, Gabriel and Eli. She was educated at the University of Cape Town (UCT) Medical School, where she received her Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery in 1991, her Master of Public Health in 2011, and her PhD in 2015; her PhD dissertation, supervised by Bongani Mayosi and Mark Engel, was titled The outcomes of asymptomatic and symptomatic rheumatic heart disease.

After working as a senior registrar at Red Cross War Memorial Children's Hospital Department of Paediatrics and Child Health (2000–2002; 2006–2007) and abroad at University Hospital of Düsseldorf (2004–2006), she was promoted to senior specialist in paediatric cardiology (2007–2008), before serving as Clinical Coordinator and Researcher of the Stop Rheumatic Heart Disease A.S.A.P. Programme (2008–2016). She was the first South Africa's woman to be appointed as a full professor in paediatric cardiology. In 2018, her research extends to large-scale registry and implementation work in rheumatic heart disease. For example, she contributed to the multinational REMEDY study of over 3 000 patients in 12 African countries, India and Yemen, which highlighted the burden, complications and care gaps in RHD.

Leadership and Global Health Advocacy

In 2012, she became president of the Paediatric Cardiac Society of South Africa, serving until 2016; from that year until 2018, she served as president of the South African Heart Association.

She is a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa. She is also Fellow of the College of Paediatricians of South Africa (1999), Fellow of the European Society of Cardiology (2015), Fellow of the American College of Cardiology (2016),

Community Outreach and public Engagement

Beyond her academic and clinical work, Zühlke has engaged in public health advocacy. She led the development of a national paediatric COVID-19/MIS-C biorepository and research platform in South Africa to ensure representation of African children in global studies on the syndrome. In 2023, she co-authored a protocol for a national systematic review of rheumatic heart disease burden and care barriers in South Africa, reflecting her ongoing commitment to research translation into policy. She is also regularly consulted by civil society (laypeople, parents and support groups), private and governmental organisations regarding congenital and rheumatic heart disease. In 2021, Zühlke participated in the "Conversations from the Heart" podcast by the World Heart Federation, highlighting her global health leadership in cardiovascular disease in children and young adults.

Awards and honours

2018: she was the winner of the UK Medical Research Council and Department for International Development's 2018 African Research Leader Award. 2026: Zühlke was named the L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science International Award laureate for Africa and the Arab States, in recognition of her research on cardiovascular disease in children, particularly rheumatic heart disease.