Adrienne Flanagan

Professor Adrienne Flanagan is a distinguished academic in Musculoskeletal Pathology at University College London's Cancer Institute within the Department of Pathology. She practices clinical pathology at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital and serves as Meeting Secretary of the Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland, while also holding trustee positions with Sarcoma UK, The Jean Shanks Foundation, and The Chordoma Foundation (USA).

Her educational background includes a Bachelor of Medicine from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (1981) and a PhD from the University of London (1990), completed during her tenure as a Medical Research Council Training Fellow at St George's Hospital Medical School.

Flanagan's research program centers on identifying genetic alterations in bone and soft tissue tumors, translating molecular findings into clinical diagnostics. She pioneered the discovery that brachyury expression serves as a universal diagnostic biomarker for chordoma, first reported IDH1/IDH2 mutations in cartilaginous tumors (linking them to Ollier and Maffucci syndromes), and identified recurrent H3F3 mutations in giant cell tumor of bone and chondroblastoma. Her work with the International Cancer Genome Consortium (2010-2015) established genomic landscapes for multiple bone tumor types.

Her publications demonstrate consistent leadership in molecular tumor classification, with recent work spanning chromothripsis in osteosarcoma, HOX gene expression in spinal development, and AI-driven mitotic figure detection. Current research focuses on reclassifying tumors through molecular signatures to improve diagnostic accuracy and treatment stratification.

• Goudie Award for pathological science contributions (2017)
• William Gerald Award from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre
• Senior NIHR Fellowship (2017)

Flanagan maintains close collaboration with international patient advocacy groups and the Wellcome Trust Cancer Institute. Her clinical and research work directly informs diagnostic services through molecular-pathological correlation. She leads the Research Department of Pathology at UCL and contributes to national pathology training system development using digital pathology platforms.