Hagar Ismail
PhD Candidate
Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences
About
Hagar earned her bachelor’s degree in biotechnology from MSA University in Egypt, an institution accredited by both the Egyptian Ministry of Higher Education and the British Ministry of Education. Her graduation project was published as a first-author publication in the Clinical Breast Cancer journal: 10.1016/j.clbc.2020.11.005. She then worked as a research technician in several labs at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) investigating complex genetic diseases such as diabetes and cancer. Her contributions to these projects resulted in co-authorships on 3 publications. Hagar is currently a PhD student in the GEMS program at UIC, where she is investigating the mechanism by which prolonged elevation of glucose triggers hyperglycemia-induced mitochondrial adaptation (HIMA) in retinal endothelial cells. Acquisition of HIMA delays damage of the retinal vasculature, one of the primary causes of diabetic retinopathy. Elucidating the underlying mechanism of HIMA will enable development of novel therapeutic approaches to protect patients with diabetes from developing diabetic retinopathy.