Dr. Hammel completed her undergraduate education in Bioengineering at Temple University, where she developed a 3D engineered model of vascularized adipose tissue. Remaining inspired to continue research, she then pursued her PhD in Biomedical Engineering at Virginia Tech. During her time there, she developed engineered models of the lymph node and meningeal lymphatics to study cell and fluid transport, response to chemotherapy, and metastasis. With this work, she saw the damage that cancer treatment can cause to healthy tissues in the body. Dr. Hammel now works with Sharon Gerecht at Duke University, whose lab focuses on understanding microenvironmental cues in vasculature across broad contexts.
As a KURe scholar, Dr. Hammel will develop a tissue engineered model of the bladder wall. She will use this model to study radiation cystitis with clinical mentorship from Dr. Andrew Peterson. This research aims to identify novel mechanisms behind radiotherapy-induced bladder dysfunction and to develop a useful in vitro platform for testing countermeasures and treatments. Dr. Hammel is passionate about creating sophisticated in vitro models to understand the long-lasting impacts of cancer treatment and using these platforms to develop therapeutics that improve quality of life for cancer survivors.