My independent research at The University at Buffalo focuses on targeting the mammary gland microenvironment by evaluating cellular and tissue responses during specific developmental windows of mammary gland remodeling including puberty, the period of hormonal withdrawal during estrous cycling, or post-lactational involution. My choice to focus on discrete times of development for chemopreventive intervention, rather than long-term (and often life-time) intervention, represents a unique approach of short-term exposure at critical points of mammary gland development. Our goal is to allow women to bypass the need for lifelong compliance to a chemopreventive diet or drug regimen in order to attain lifelong protection against breast cancer. Developmentally targeted dietary interventions being investigated in our lab include continuous administration of oral contraceptives, dietary exposure to conjugated linoleic acid, and ethanol.