Lab Staff

Vidu Garg, MD
Principal Investigator
CV and Publications

Vidu Garg is is Director of the Center for Cardiovascular Research and the Nationwide Foundation Endowed Chair in Cardiovascular Research at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. He is a Professor in the Department of Pediatrics and holds an adjunct appointment in the Department of Molecular Genetics at The Ohio State University. He also serves as Director of Translational Research and is a board-certified practicing pediatric cardiologist in the Heart Center at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. Dr. Garg completed his pediatric residency at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in 1997 after which he spent five years at University of Texas Southwestern completing his pediatric cardiology training and a post-doctoral research fellowship in cardiac development and cardiovascular genetics. Subsequently, he joined the faculty at University of Texas Southwestern before returning to Nationwide Children’s. Dr. Garg’s research laboratory focuses on deciphering the genetic architecture of congenital heart disease and understanding how these disease genes influence clinical outcomes of patients affected by this disease, the most common type of birth defect.

Ruth Ackah, MD
Post-Doctoral Research Fellow

Dr. Ackah received her medical degree from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, in 2018. She is currently an active general surgery resident in The Ohio State University General Surgery Program. Dr. Ackah joined the Garg Lab in 2020. Her current work focuses on the evaluation of biomechanics and embryologic origins of congenital heart associated aneurysmal disease.

Emily Morris Cameron, MS
Cardiovascular Research Program Manager

Emily received her MS degree in Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology from The Ohio State University in 2016. She began working at The Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in 2011 and transferred into the Garg Lab in July of 2017.

Talita Choudhury, MS
Graduate Student

Talita received her MS degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Dhaka in Bangladesh in 2017. She is a graduate student in the Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology Ph.D. program at The Ohio State University. She joined the Garg lab in 2016 and is currently involved in projects that aim to understand the epigenetic mechanisms underlying maternal diabetes associated congenital heart defects.

Benjamin Gilbert, MS 
Graduate Student

Benjamin (Ben) received his master’s degree in Biology from Case Western Reserve University in 2021. Ben is currently a doctorate student at The Ohio State University Department of Molecular Genetics. Ben joined the Garg Lab in 2022. His research focuses on the molecular and biological roles of genes involved in proper cardiovascular development.

Holly Girard
Research Associate

Holly received her bachelor’s degree in Forestry and Wildlife from The Ohio State University in 2020. She began working at at Nationwide Children’s in 2020 and transferred into the Garg Lab in 2022.