Jul 3, 2008

Big grant to boost Belmont resident's fertility research

By Neil Gonzales / Bay Area News Group

A Belmont resident's researching skills have earned her a prominent science grant for her groundbreaking work on male infertility.

Diana Chu, an assistant biology professor at San Francisco State University, recently won a five-year grant of $655,000 from the National Science Foundation.

The funding will support her research on the role of proteins in sperm production.

"It's extremely exciting to get funded for this work," Chu said. "We're working on a protein only found in sperm. Our goal is to figure out what it's doing and how this protein is important in packaging DNA in sperm."

Her research has found that removing the protein leads to a decrease in fertility. "We want to find out why," she said.

Because researching the molecular causes of male infertility directly in humans is technically difficult, she and her team used the tiny worm Caenorhabditis elegans as the model species.

The foundation's Faculty Early Career Development Grant Program recognizes young professors who show top-caliber research, excellent instruction and the integration of both.

The grant will fund postdoctoral and graduate student assistants for Chu's research as well as laboratory supplies.

It will also provide tutors for biology graduate students to improve their writing skills. "It will help them prepare better grant proposals and science papers," Chu said.

Sheldon Axler, dean of the College of Science and Engineering at San Francisco State University, described Chu as "an outstanding researcher," noting that the journal Nature featured her work two years ago.

"This is a really prestigious award," Axler said of the grant. "It shows her dedication to give her students opportunities to participate in high-level research."

Chu's interest in research started when she participated in a high school science program targeting minority students.

"I was doing cell research and got excited in science," she said.

She continued doing research work at and graduated from University of California, Berkeley. She later received a doctorate in molecular biology at University of California, Los Angeles.

Raised in Reno, Nev., she has lived in Belmont for about four years.