The Transdisciplinary Research on Energetics and Cancer (TREC) Center at Washington University in St. Louis is part of a National Cancer Institute (NCI) major research initiative aimed at reducing cancer linked with obesity, poor diet and low levels of physical activity. The National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health currently supports five TREC centers across the United States.

TREC@WUSTL is fostered and supported by the Institute for Public Health, Washington University School of Medicine and the George Warren Brown School of Social Work. The center brings together broad scientific expertise from faculty within Washington University in St. Louis, and collaborators and consultants from other institutions, to study the relationship between obesity and cancer across the life course. This innovative transdisciplinary approach to cancer research moves beyond traditional risk factor associations to look at multilevel and multigenerational associations.

Through four research projects and five cores, TREC@WUSTL aims to answer the question: What are the factors in the molecular and social environments that influence energetics to produce cancer throughout the lifespan? This information will allow us to make recommendations for policy change to decrease rates of cancer and reduce the burden of cancer due to obesity. TREC@WUSTL will also foster transdisciplinary career development in obesity and cancer for postdoctoral fellows and scholars across our university.

Learn more about TREC@WUSTL’s transdisciplinary approach to studying the associations between obesity and cancer.