Becoming an chondrosarcoma Research Sponsor is an excellent way to put 100% of your money into the life saving research you care about.
Meet Adrienne
Professor Adrienne Flanagan is one of our chondrosarcoma researchers that your sponsorship will support. Adrienne is based at University College London, specialising in the pathology of bone and soft-tissue tumours and she is the lead of the International Cancer Genome Consortium for bone tumours. She has carried out some of the most successful research in the bone cancer field, working with osteosarcoma, chondrosarcoma and chordoma.
About Adrienne's research
Professor Flanagan has identified a promising biomarker for chondrosarcoma (which would be the first one found), in the form of a mutation to a gene known as IDH1. A biomarker is a protein or gene that offers a measurable and quantifiable way of detecting something. Mutations to the IDH1 gene are present in approximately 50% of chondrosarcomas. Her group have already seen that these mutations can be found within the tumour, and, that higher levels of mutations correlate with higher grade tumours.
The group have developed a promising new blood test which detects small fragments of DNA from the tumour, which are present in the blood: this is called circulating tumour DNA (or ctDNA). This blood test can detect IDH1 mutations in chondrosarcoma patients, and the levels detected are seen to be high before surgery and drop off after surgery.
Professor Flanagan's current project will determine if measuring the levels of the IDH1 biomarker in a diagnostic biopsy and in blood tests can predict the grade of a patient’s chondrosarcoma more accurately than just looking down a microscope. The study will also look at whether we can use routine blood tests to monitor patients and detect the very early stages of recurrence and catch this before the chondrosarcoma begins to spread.
You can read more about our other chondrosarcoma projects that your sponsorship will help support here.
Why become a monthly chondrosarcoma Research Sponsor?
From just £5 a month, you will provide our chondrosarcoma researchers with consistent funding to fuel their work, providing them with vital equipment, materials and essential laboratory time. Your monthly support will ensure we can commit to longer term chondrosarcoma research projects and see potential new treatments through to clinical trial. We will send you regular progress reports and promise to keep you up to date on all our latest exciting developments. We’ll even invite you to lab open days so you can see how your sponsorship is helping and you’ll get to meet our researchers.
By becoming an chondrosarcoma Research Sponsor, 100% of your sponsorship will go to our chondrosarcoma research and will be used on the chondrosarcoma projects where the need is greatest.