Dr. Herman A. Hoster, Jr. was the son of Herman Hoster, and name-bearer of the Herman A. Hoster Research Laboratory of the Department of Medicine and the Department of Zoology at the Ohio State University. He was a graduate of Yale University and Johns Hopkins University who would suffer from Hodgkin's Disease. After learning of his illness, Dr. Hoster resigned his medical position with Yale to return home to Columbus. There he focused on research of the disease at Ohio State University. He became a professor of medicine and eventually an associate director of research at the College of Medicine, where he performed experiments on himself related to his illness, including some at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. He published several leading research papers, including support of radiation therapy to treat the disease.