Dima A. Hammoud, M.D.

The Hammoud lab in the Clinical Center (CC) focuses on the development of preclinical, translational, and clinical molecular imaging applications to improve the understanding of infection pathophysiology and provide reliable imaging biomarkers of infectious diseases.

Current research in the laboratory focuses on the development and validation of novel fungal-specific imaging biomarkers in animal models using non-invasive molecular imaging techniques, mainly positron emission tomography (PET), as well as their translation to human applications.

Another interest of the lab is utilizing molecular imaging to better understand the pathophysiology of HIV in the brain and periphery, and to identify HIV reservoirs. Dr Hammoud also collaborates with investigators at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to image high-consequence viral infections such as Ebola, Nipah and Lassa viruses.

Dr. Hammoud is tenured senior investigator and Chief of the Neuroradiology Section in CC-Radiology and Imaging Sciences (RADIS). Dr Hammoud is board-certified in diagnostic imaging by the American Board of Radiology and has completed fellowships in neuroradiology and PET imaging. She is the deputy director of the Center for Infectious Disease Imaging (CIDI, a joint initiative between the CC and NIAID). She has served as Chair of the scientific program committee for the 2025 World Molecular imaging Congress (WMIC), chair of the "Imaging of Infections” (IOI) interest group at WMIS, ACUC Chair at the NIH-CC, Vice-Chair of Neurosciences (Brain imaging council) at SNMMI and Board Member of SNMMI CMIIT Center of Excellence (COE) Program Task Force. She has >140 peer-reviewed publications, 7 book chapters, and has won multiple awards including the 2024 NIH Director’s award for her work on imaging fungal infections.