Hester Lab Staff

Mark Hester, PhD
Principal Investigator
Mark.Hester@NationwideChildrens.org

Mark Hester, PhD, is a principal investigator in the Institute for Genomic Medicine and an associate professor with tenure in the Department of Pediatrics at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. He is also an affiliate faculty member in the college’s Department of Neuroscience and a faculty member within the Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, Biomedical Sciences, and Neuroscience Graduate Programs. Dr. Hester has a widely recognized track record of more than 25 years of research on adult and pluripotent stem cells, neurodegeneration, gene therapy, next generation sequencing, reprogramming and in vitro disease modeling.

Dr. Hester received his PhD in molecular genetics from The Ohio State University in 2005 and first began studying the genetic underpinnings of neurological disease during his postdoctoral fellowship in Dr. Brian Kaspar’s lab in the Center for Gene Therapy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. His team bioengineered the first in vitro co-culture model of sporadic ALS astrocytes and motor neurons, uncovering insights into common disease mechanisms between familial and sporadic ALS, which was published in Nature Biotechnology. Dr. Hester’s passion for understanding neurological disease mechanisms then led to new opportunities working at Battelle Memorial Institute, where he managed projects focused on bioassay development to functionally validate and screen novel therapeutics.

Having established his laboratory in the Institute for Genomic Medicine in 2019, Dr. Hester’s research couples his expertise in personalized in vitro models with deep phenotyping approaches to understand neurological disease mechanisms and develop therapeutic strategies for these conditions. His team uses state-of-the-art equipment and resources such as electrophysiology, high-content imaging technologies and patient-specific stem cell lines, as well as genomics tools such as single-cell RNA sequencing, that are foundational to their research program.

Morgan Moser, PhD
Post Doctoral Research Scientist

Morgan is a postdoctoral scientist in the Hester Lab. Her research is focused on understanding the cellular and molecular mechanisms of epilepsy in a rare genetic disorder called Tuberous Sclerosis Complex (TSC), and she is also leading preclinical efforts to develop an AAV-based genetic therapy for TSC Type 2.

Morgan was born and raised in rural western Maryland and was a first-generation college student. Morgan earned an AS in chemistry from Hagerstown Community College and a BS in biochemistry and molecular biology from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) before relocating to Ohio for her graduate education. Morgan completed an MS and a PhD in molecular, cellular, and developmental biology at The Ohio State University.

Gongbo Guo
Graduate Research Associate

Gongbo Guo is a PhD candidate in molecular, cellular, and developmental biology at The Ohio State University, mentored by Dr. Mark Hester. He passed his candidacy exam in September 2023. He holds a BSc in biotechnology from Sichuan University, which he earned in 2016, and a master’s degree from the University of Rochester, which he earned in 2018 after studying Nasonia vitripennis using novel sequencing technologies. He then worked at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine on Parkinson’s disease research and pancreatic cancer. Gongbo’s current research focuses on blood-brain barrier deficits in Tuberous Sclerosis Complex (TSC), with a specific interest in the role of pericytes in mediating pathological calcification. Gongbo is also highly involved in studying AUTS2-related neurodevelopmental disorders and developing a novel gene therapy for TSC Type 2.

Smruti Patel
Graduate Research Associate

Smruti Patel is a Neuroscience PhD student at The Ohio State University. Her research interests focus on investigating the neurological mechanisms underlying Cockayne Syndrome Type B. She is also involved in the lab’s ongoing studies of Tuberous Sclerosis Complex (TSC). Smruti is originally from New Jersey and earned her Bachelor of Arts in psychology, with honors, from Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Will Colombo
Research Assistant

Will Colombo is a research assistant in Dr. Hester’s lab, where he supports ongoing research studying therapeutic approaches for Tuberous Sclerosis Complex (TSC), a rare genetic disorder that often leads to epilepsy. He graduated from Dublin Coffman High School in May 2026 and will attend The Ohio State University in fall 2026, where he intends to pursue a Bachelor of Science while working toward a career in medicine and biomedical research. Under Dr. Hester’s mentorship, Will contributes to laboratory research and has gained hands-on experience analyzing neuronal activity using in vitro and in vivo TSC models, as well as assisting with animal handling. Outside of the lab, he is active in his church community and enjoys skiing and playing golf with friends.