A member of the faculty of the C.S. Mott Center for Human Growth and Development at the Wayne State University School of Medicine has received a donation in support of his research into infertility.

The donors, Drs. George and Maria Kofinas, of the Kofinas Fertility Group in New York, presented $50,000 to the lab of Husam Abu-Soud, Ph.D., associate professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and of the C.S. Mott Center for Human Growth and Development.

“We are very grateful for this gift and the interest in our research. The donors are reproductive endocrinologists who own a fertility clinic and liked the efforts of our lab, as our focus is on broad aspects of oocyte quality and female fertility,” Dr. Abu-Soud said. “This will hopefully create more collaborative projects between the clinic and lab.”

Dr. Abu-Soud said the collaboration was initiated by a student who trained under a fellowship in his lab and who now works for the donors as an infertility specialist.

Dr. Abu-Soud’s lab investigates the effects of oxidative stress and related phenomena on women’s reproductive health. The focus is on ovarian and oocyte aging, the effects of drugs and their metabolites on the oocyte, the impact of environmental toxins on female reproduction, dietary substances and their metabolites’ effects on female fertility, the relationship between redox balance and neoplastic growth in the female reproductive system, and interactions of various biochemical species, notably mammalian peroxidases, in influencing oxidative stress in the biological environment.