The Breast Cancer and Environment Research Centers (BCERC) is a seven-year project jointly funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the National Cancer Institute. The centers are studying the impact of prenatal-to-adult environmental exposures that may predispose a woman to breast cancer.

Functioning as a consortium of basic scientists, epidemiologists, research translational units, and community advocates within and across centers, BCERC is investigating mammary gland development in animals and young girls to determine vulnerability to environmental agents that may influence breast cancer development in adulthood.

The overall outcomes of the BCERC are to develop public health messages designed to educate young girls and women who are at high risk of breast cancer about the role(s) of specific environmental stressors in breast cancer and how to reduce exposures to those stressors. These public health messages will be based on the integration of the basic biological, toxicological, and epidemiologic data.