Dr. Mary Hammes

Biography

Mary Hammes is an Associate Professor at the University of Chicago, specializing in nephrology and serving as a clinical nephrologist. With over 30 years of experience, she is certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine and has a profound interest in chronic out-patient hemodialysis, for which she serves as the Medical Director of a large outpatient hemodialysis unit. Her clinical efforts aim to improve the lives and outcomes of patients with End Stage Kidney Disease. Dr. Hammes conducts research focused on vascular access used by patients receiving hemodialysis, which she views as a lifeline and a critical aspect of care. Her primary research goal is to investigate the underlying mechanisms of vascular access failure, particularly stenosis and thrombosis, to enhance patient care outcomes. In collaboration with scientists at the University of Chicago, she developed a novel patient-specific milli-fluidic model to study blood flow in veins used for dialysis. Dr. Hammes has numerous publications on this topic and has been awarded research grants, including an R01 grant from NIH. Her work fosters multi-disciplinary collaboration across medicine, surgery, radiology, epidemiology, bioengineering, and genetics, aimed at understanding access placement decisions and mechanisms of access failure, ultimately directing treatments to improve morbidity and mortality for patients requiring hemodialysis.

Research Interests

Experience