A researcher at 黑洞社区 has procured continuation of a grant to conduct research that could affect fertility treatment for millions of women.
George Bousfield, Lawrence M. Jones Distinguished Professor, biological sciences, was awarded a five-year renewal of a grant with the National Institute on Aging, one of the National Institutes of Health.
In September his proposal, 鈥淭he Aging Pituitary/Gonadal Axis,鈥� was funded $1,801,381 for the first year of a five-year award that will potentially yield $8,628,697. Bousfield began receiving support for this research in 2009.
The purpose of the project is to determine the effects of an age-related change in follicle-stimulating hormone glycosylation on fertility, osteoporosis and obesity.
鈥淭he grant gives us another five-year period to explore FSH glycoform abundance and its relationship to reproductive aging and fertility,鈥� said Bousfield. 鈥淲e will also address the controversial role of FSH in osteoporosis. One of our FSH glycoform preparations was used in a recent study that implicated post-menopausal FSH in obesity.鈥�
In young women, most FSH is missing one of its four carbohydrates and is more active. As women age, more of the FSH is fully glycosylated 鈥� the process by which sugars are chemically attached to proteins to form glycoproteins 鈥� and has less biological activity.
The loss in FSH activity causes the body to secrete more of the less active FSH forms. This action, however, is believed to contribute to bone loss and increased obesity.
Bousfield鈥檚 study aims to shed light on the mechanisms involved in these processes.
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