Hester Lab Staff

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

Marl Hester, PhD, is a principal investigator in the Institute for Genomic Medicine. He leads a translational neuroscience laboratory focused on understanding the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying neurological disorders with emphasis on pediatric epilepsy and autism. Dr. Hester is an assistant professor of Pediatrics at The Ohio State University College of Medicine and an affiliate faculty member in the college’s Department of Neuroscience. He is also a member of the Chronic Brain Injury (CBI) Program at Ohio State. Dr. Hester has a widely recognized track record of over 20 years of research on adult and pluripotent stem cells, neurodegeneration, gene therapy, next generation sequencing, reprogramming and in vitro disease modeling.

Dr. Hester first began studying the genetic underpinnings of neurological disease during his postdoctoral fellowship in Dr. Brian Kaspar’s lab in the Jerry R. Mendell 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 in industry where he managed projects focused on bioassay development to functionally validate and screen novel therapeutics. 

As a new faculty member in the Institute for Genomic Medicine, Dr. Hester’s research couples his expertise in personalized in vitro models with deep phenotyping approaches to understand underlying mechanisms of neurological disease. His team use state-of-the-art equipment and resources such as electrophysiology, high content imaging technologies and patient-specific glial 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 Tuberous Sclerosis Complex (TSC), a rare genetic disorder.

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
Research Associate

Gongbo Guo is a PhD candidate in molecular, cellular & 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 (2016) and a master's from the University of Rochester (2018), where he studied Nasonia vitripennis using novel sequencing technologies. He then worked at Johns Hopkins University Medical School on Parkinson’s Disease research and pancreatic cancer. Gongbo’s current research focuses on blood-brain barrier deficits in Tuberous Sclerosis Complex (TSC) with specific interest on the role of pericytes in mediating pathological calcification. Gongbo is also highly involved in studying Auts2-related neurodevelopmental disorders and the development of a novel gene therapy for TSC Type 2.

Yuxuan Chen
Research Assistant

Yuxuan Chen is a dedicated student research assistant in Hester's lab at The Ohio State University, where he is currently pursuing his undergraduate degree in psychology. Expected to graduate with a BS in Fall 2027, Yuxuan is deeply involved in research that primarily focuses on gene therapy for Tuberous Sclerosis Complex (TSC), a rare genetic disorder. His work in the lab is driven by a passion for advancing therapeutic strategies for this challenging condition. Outside of his academic pursuits, Yuxuan enjoys staying active on the badminton court and finds relaxation and creativity through playing the piano in his free time.