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Overview of the Research Program

This international collaborative study group is actively involved in identifying the role of timing of exposure to dietary factors in affecting lifetime risk of developing breast cancer in women. Many dietary factor including fatty acids, phytoestrogens, heavy metals and vitamins A and D interact directly or indirectly with estrogen receptors or other members of the steroid receptor superfamily of nuclear receptors. However, epidemiologic studies investigating the association of these various factors with breast cancer risk have produced inconsistent and controversial results.

This research group is focused on addressing the hypothesis that the timing of exposure to these factors is critical to determining how these exposures affect breast cancer risk. Since most previous studies have examined primarily the reproductive years and the postmenopause, the primary periods of exposure under investigation are the fetal period and childhood to young adulthood and pregnancy. We have established an international, multidisciplinary research group that includes established breast cancer and bioinformatic research programs from the U.S.A. (Georgetown University, The Catholic University of America), Finland (University of Tampere, University of Turku), Sweden (Karolinska Institute) and investigators at the International Agency for Research on Cancer. The host institution is Georgetown University, Washington, DC (U.S.A.), with major research projects and supporting shared resources/investigators located at the other institutions. The Principal Investigator of this research group is Dr. Leena A. Hilakivi-Clarke (Professor of Oncology, Georgetown University).

Applying state-of-the-art methods and a highly integrative program of basic research and population based studies, we are performing the following studies: