In the area of developmental origins of health and disease, Dr. Thomas Knudsen (Craniofacial Biology) is studying the fetal origins of breast cancer and the role of environmental factors during development, conception-to-weaning in this disease process.  These studies are being conducted to develop new biomarkers based on genetic regulatory networks that correlate or anti-correlate with altered fetal programming and pre-malignancy through the p53 tumor suppressor pathway.  Mammary gland development is a clonal process and, as such, the epigenetic reprogramming of stem cell populations during prenatal development may lead to disease foci later in adult life.  Other investigations are focusing on gene, protein and metabolite expression profiling to define normal and disease phenotypes (Fan, Chemistry) and resolution of fingerprints of the biological response to environmental insult.  Advances in the field of toxicogenomics are also allowing integration of transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics with traditional histopathological endpoints (Fan, Chemistry and Ramos, Biochemistry).  Expansion of these efforts will require centralization of efforts and the creation of an effective Knowledge Exchange Network

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