[2] In 1991, as a fellow of the W. Alton Jones Foundation, she brought a group of 21 scientists with diverse backgrounds together, to attend the first of a series of conferences at Racine, Wisconsin, that became known simply as "Wingspread", about the effects of human exposure to hormone-disrupting chemicals examined in the environment.

She published and lectured extensively on the consequences of prenatal exposure to synthetic chemicals by the developing embryo and fetus in wildlife, laboratory animals, and humans.

[3]: 6  Two years later she testified in the US House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform about "the need for full disclosure of chemicals used to produce and deliver natural gas".

"[3]: 6 [8] Colborn's 1988 research on the state of the environment of the Great Lakes revealed that apex predator female birds, fish, mammals, and reptiles transferred persistent, man-made chemicals to their offspring, which undermined the development and programming of their youngsters' organs before they were born or hatched.

[12] The information from this volume and numerous subsequent scientific publications on the result of low-dose and/or ambient exposure effects of endocrine disruptors was popularized in her 1996 book, Our Stolen Future, co-authored with Dianne Dumanoski and John Peterson Myers published in 18 languages.

After her marriage dissolved in the 1970s she started doing field work for the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory examining water for toxicants released by mining activity.

[14] For much of her life, Dr Colborn suffered from undiagnosed coeliac disease; after years of distress, it was finally identified in the 1980s (she was then in her late fifties) and she eliminated rice and potato from her diet, with immediate relief.