Rate My Professor James Flanagan

Professor James Flanagan is Professor of Cancer Informatics in the Department of Surgery and Cancer, Faculty of Medicine at Imperial College London. He completed his PhD in 2002 at the Queensland Institute of Medical Research in Brisbane, Australia, followed by postdoctoral positions in Toronto and at University College London. In 2009, he established his research group at Imperial College London as a Breast Cancer Now Scientific Fellow, advancing through positions as Senior Lecturer and Reader to his current professorship. As course director for the MRes Cancer Biology programme, he designed the Cancer Informatics stream in 2014, training students in cancer biology, wet lab research, and bioinformatics using tools like R programming in a flipped classroom approach. He leads the Translational Epigenomics group, focusing on epigenetics biomarkers such as DNA methylation to address questions in personalised medicine and carcinogenesis, particularly in breast and ovarian cancer. His research investigates epigenetic risk factors using whole genome-bisulphite sequencing, including signatures of lifetime oestrogen exposure in blood DNA linked to breast cancer risk, DNA repair-driven changes in response to platinum-based chemotherapy, environmental impacts from air pollution and tobacco smoking, and metformin effects on normal breast cells for prevention.

Professor Flanagan's work extends to innovative digital health approaches, notably leading the Cancer Loyalty Card Study (CLOCS), which uses retail loyalty card data to identify early signs of ovarian and breast cancer through purchase behaviour patterns. He received a £150,715 grant from Breast Cancer Now in 2024 to explore breastfeeding's protective effects against breast cancer via epigenetic analysis of breast milk samples from the Breastmilk Epigenetics Cohort Study. His contributions to major consortia have identified multiple susceptibility loci for epithelial ovarian cancer and associations at the TERT locus with telomere length and breast/ovarian cancer risks, published in Nature Genetics (2013, 2015, 2017). Highly cited works include studies on carboplatin in BRCA-mutated breast cancer (Nature Medicine, 2018), epigenomic changes in psychosis (American Journal of Human Genetics, 2008), and smoking-related epigenetic loci (Human Molecular Genetics, 2013). With over 11,900 citations on Google Scholar, his research influences cancer risk assessment, early detection, and prevention strategies. He supervises PhD students and collaborates with institutes like the Francis Crick Institute and Institute of Cancer Research.