Dr Anastasia Constantinidou graduated with a first class from the Medical School of the National and Kapodistrian University in Athens Greece (MD). She gained Membership of the Royal College of Physicians (MRCP) in the UK and she subsequently completed her specialist clinical training in Internal Medicine and her specialist clinical training in Medical Oncology (CCT) at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London (2011). She gained an MSc in Oncology (Merit) from the University of London and she was awarded a Wellcome Trust Fellowship for laboratory research in Molecular Pathology for her PhD studies at the Institute of Cancer Research, University of London.
Her basic science research has focused on the identification of genes involved in the process of cell differentiation as novel targets in cancer therapeutics with emphasis on epigenetics. Her clinical and translational research expertise is based on first-hand experience in participating in UK, European and international clinical and translational trials as a principal or co-investigator including first in human (phase I) clinical trials. She has been awarded a number of fellowships throughout her career including the Hellenic Society of Medical Oncology Clinical Training Fellowship and the ECCO-AACR-EORTC-ESMO Fellowship in Methods in Clinical Cancer Research Workshop as well as grants from the Wellcome Trust UK, the Sarcoma UK, the Research and Innovation Foundation (RIF Cyprus), the Horizon 2020 and the Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Programmes. She is currently involved in several research projects including CARDIOCARE (funded by HORIZON 2020, local PI), ECHOs (funded by HORIZON Europe, local PI), ECAN (funded by EU4Health, local clinical PI), E CAN PLUS (EU4Health, local clinical PI), BIOBREAST (funded by RIF, PI).
Her basic science research has focused on the identification of genes involved in the process of cell differentiation as novel targets in cancer therapeutics with emphasis on epigenetics. Her clinical and translational research expertise is based on first-hand experience in participating in UK, European and international clinical and translational trials as a principal or co-investigator including first in human (phase I) clinical trials. She has been awarded a number of fellowships throughout her career including the Hellenic Society of Medical Oncology Clinical Training Fellowship and the ECCO-AACR-EORTC-ESMO Fellowship in Methods in Clinical Cancer Research Workshop as well as grants from the Wellcome Trust UK, the Sarcoma UK, the Research and Innovation Foundation (RIF Cyprus), the Horizon 2020 and the Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Programmes. She is currently involved in several research projects including CARDIOCARE (funded by HORIZON 2020, local PI), ECHOs (funded by HORIZON Europe, local PI), ECAN (funded by EU4Health, local clinical PI), E CAN PLUS (EU4Health, local clinical PI), BIOBREAST (funded by RIF, PI).
Dr Constantinidou was the recipient of the 2020 Young Investigator Award in Life Sciences by the RIF.
Through competitive selection, she has presented her work in many international conferences including the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) and the Connective Tissue Oncology Society (CTOS) annual conferences for over fifteen years. She has authored publications in high impact factor peer-reviewed journals including the Lancet Oncology, the Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology, the Annals of Oncology, the European Journal of Cancer, the British Journal of Cancer and Pharmacology & Therapeutics. She serves as a reviewer and an editorial board member in oncology and medical journals. She has been an invited speaker and chair on topics related to her research and clinical work nationally (UK, Cyprus) and internationally. She has served as an invited organizing committee member in the annual ESMO Asia and annual ESMO conferences. She has been a Faculty member of the European School of Oncology programme for oncology trainees and junior oncologists, since 2017 (Principles in Oncology Meeting, Southern Europe and Arab Countries Meeting).
Dr Constantinidou is the coordinator of the first postgraduate programme of the Medical School of the UCY, entitled Precision Medicine in Clinical Practice, which enrolled its first students in September 2021. She was a member of the National Bioethics Committee (2018-2024) and the National Committee for Laboratory Animal Welfare (2018 - 2021). She is the coordinator of the National Affiliated Centre of the European Reference Network EURACAN Rare Adult Solid Cancers and she has been a member of the Steering Committee of EURACAN since 2022. She is the Representative of Cyprus in the ESMO National Societies Committee. She has been the president of the Cyprus Oncology Society Board since 2023 and through this role she led the organisation of the 1st Cyprus Oncology Congress in February 2025.
Through competitive selection, she has presented her work in many international conferences including the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) and the Connective Tissue Oncology Society (CTOS) annual conferences for over fifteen years. She has authored publications in high impact factor peer-reviewed journals including the Lancet Oncology, the Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology, the Annals of Oncology, the European Journal of Cancer, the British Journal of Cancer and Pharmacology & Therapeutics. She serves as a reviewer and an editorial board member in oncology and medical journals. She has been an invited speaker and chair on topics related to her research and clinical work nationally (UK, Cyprus) and internationally. She has served as an invited organizing committee member in the annual ESMO Asia and annual ESMO conferences. She has been a Faculty member of the European School of Oncology programme for oncology trainees and junior oncologists, since 2017 (Principles in Oncology Meeting, Southern Europe and Arab Countries Meeting).
Dr Constantinidou is the coordinator of the first postgraduate programme of the Medical School of the UCY, entitled Precision Medicine in Clinical Practice, which enrolled its first students in September 2021. She was a member of the National Bioethics Committee (2018-2024) and the National Committee for Laboratory Animal Welfare (2018 - 2021). She is the coordinator of the National Affiliated Centre of the European Reference Network EURACAN Rare Adult Solid Cancers and she has been a member of the Steering Committee of EURACAN since 2022. She is the Representative of Cyprus in the ESMO National Societies Committee. She has been the president of the Cyprus Oncology Society Board since 2023 and through this role she led the organisation of the 1st Cyprus Oncology Congress in February 2025.
Ø translational research applications with emphasis on the utilization of laboratory discoveries related to gene expression to identify new targets for anticancer therapy and biomarkers to guide response assessment in the context of personalized and precision medicine
Ø early phase clinical trials of novel targeted agents in cancer
Ø the role of genetic and epigenetic changes in cancer development and progression and the potential of these changes to become targets for therapy
Ø functional imaging in humans and its role in the assessment of biological changes during disease progression
Selected peer reviewed publications
- Constantinidou A, Jones RL. Maintenance treatment in sarcomas: who is it for? Ann Oncol. 2025 May 13:S0923-7534(25)00194-2.
- Panagi M, Mpekris F, Voutouri C, Hadjigeorgiou AG, Symeonidou C, Porfyriou E, Michael C, Stylianou A, Martin JD, Cabral H, Constantinidou A, Stylianopoulos T. Stabilizing Tumor-Resident Mast Cells Restores T-Cell Infiltration and Sensitizes Sarcomas to PD-L1 Inhibition. Clin Cancer Res. 2024 Jun 3;30(11):2582-2597.
- Alexandraki A, Papageorgiou E, Zacharia M, Keramida K, Papakonstantinou A, Cipolla CM, Tsekoura D, Naka K, Mazzocco K, Mauri D, Tsiknakis M, Manikis GC, Marias K, Marcou Y, Kakouri E, Konstantinou I, Daniel M, Galazi M, Kampouroglou E, Ribnikar D, Brown C, Karanasiou G, Antoniades A, Fotiadis D, Filippatos G, Constantinidou A. New Insights in the Era of Clinical Biomarkers as Potential Predictors of Systemic Therapy-Induced Cardiotoxicity in Women with Breast Cancer: A Systematic Review. Cancers (Basel). 2023 Jun 22;15(13):3290.
- Panagi M, Pilavaki P, Constantinidou A, Stylianopoulos T. Immunotherapy in soft tissue and bone sarcoma: unraveling the barriers to effectiveness. Theranostics. 2022 Aug 15;12(14):6106-6129.
- Constantinidou A, Marcou Y, Toss MS, Simmons T, Bernhisel R, Hughes E, Probst B, Meek S, Kakouri E, Georgiou G, Zouvani I, Savvidou G, Kuhl V, Doedt J, Wagner S, Gutin A, Slavin TP, Lanchbury JS, Kronenwett R, Ellis IO, Rakha EA. Clinical Validation of EndoPredict in Pre-Menopausal Women with ER-Positive, HER2-Negative Primary Breast Cancer. Clin Cancer Res. 2022 Oct 14;28(20):4435-4443.
- Kassianos AP, Georgiou A, Kyprianidou M, Lamnisos D, Ļubenko J, Presti G, Squatrito V, Constantinou M, Nicolaou C, Papacostas S, Aydin G, Chong YY, Chien WT, Cheng HY, Ruiz FJ, Garcia-Martin MB, Obando D, Segura-Vargas MA, Vasiliou VS, McHugh L, Höfer S, Baban A, Neto DD, Silva AND, Monestès JL, Alvarez-Galvez J, Blarrina MP, Montesinos F, Salas SV, Őri D, Kleszcz B, Lappalainen R, Ivanović I, Gosar D, Dionne F, Merwin RM, Chatzittofis A, Konstantinou E, Economidou S, Gloster AT, Karekla M, Constantinidou A. Mental Health and Adherence to COVID-19 Protective Behaviors among Cancer Patients during the COVID-19 Pandemic: An International, Multinational Cross-Sectional Study. Cancers (Basel). 2021 Dec 15;13(24):6294.
- Mpekris F, Panagi M, Voutouri C, Martin JD, Samuel R, Takahashi S, Gotohda N, Suzuki T, Papageorgis P, Demetriou P, Pierides C, Koumas L, Costeas P, Kojima M, Ishii G, Constantinidou A, Kataoka K, Cabral H, Stylianopoulos T. Normalizing the Microenvironment Overcomes Vessel Compression and Resistance to Nano-immunotherapy in Breast Cancer Lung Metastasis. Adv Sci (Weinh). 2020 Dec 13;8(3):2001917.
- Guo C, Chénard-Poirier M, Roda D, de Miguel M, Harris SJ, Candilejo IM, Sriskandarajah P, Xu W, Scaranti M, Constantinidou A, King J, Parmar M, Turner AJ, Carreira S, Riisnaes R, Finneran L, Hall E, Ishikawa Y, Nakai K, Tunariu N, Basu B, Kaiser M, Lopez JS, Minchom A, de Bono JS, Banerji U. Intermittent schedules of the oral RAF-MEK inhibitor CH5126766/VS-6766 in patients with RAS/RAF-mutant solid tumours and multiple myeloma: a single-centre, open-label, phase 1 dose-escalation and basket dose-expansion study. Lancet Oncol. 2020 Nov;21(11):1478-1488.
- Constantinidou A, Sauve N, Stacchiotti S, Blay JY, Vincenzi B, Grignani G, Rutkowski P, Guida M, Hindi N, Klein A, Thibaud V, Sufliarsky J, Desar I, Steeghs N, Litiere S, Gelderblom H, Jones RL. Evaluation of the use and efficacy of (neo)adjuvant chemotherapy in angiosarcoma: a multicentre study. ESMO Open. 2020 Aug;5(4):e000787.
- Filippou PS, Karagiannis GS, Constantinidou A. Midkine (MDK) growth factor: a key player in cancer progression and a promising therapeutic target. Oncogene. 2020 Mar;39(10):2040-2054.
- A. Constantinidou, C. Alifieris, D. T Trafalis. Targeting Programmed Cell Death -1 (PD-1) and Ligand (PD-L1): A prosperous new era in cancer active immunotherapy. Pharmacology & Therapeutics. 2019 Feb;194:84-106.
- Chrysostomou AC, Stylianou DC, Constantinidou A, Kostrikis LG. Cervical Cancer Screening Programs in Europe: The Transition Towards HPV Vaccination and Population-Based HPV Testing. Viruses. 2018 Dec 19;10(12).
- Constantinidou A, Jones L R. Systemic Therapy in RPS Management. J Surg Oncol. 2018 Jan;117(1):87-92.
- Constantinidou A, van der Graaf WTA. The fate of new fosfamides in phase III studies in advanced soft tissue sarcoma. Eur J Cancer. 2017 Oct;84:257-261.
- A Constantinidou, I R Judson. Systemic treatment of liposarcomas: light at the end of the tunnel? J Oncol Pract. 2016 Mar;12(3):228-9.
- Constantinidou A, Pollack SM, Jones RL. Management and outcome of metastatic clear cell sarcoma. Eur J Surg Oncol. 2014 Oct;40(10):1383.
- A Constantinidou, A Miah, S Pollack, RL Jones. New Drugs and clinical trial design in advanced Sarcoma: have we made any progress? Future Oncol. 2013 Oct;9(10):1409-11. doi: 10.2217/fon.13.132. Epub 2013 Jul 15.
- A Constantinidou, D Cunningham, F Shurmahi, U Asghar, Y Barbachano, A Khan, S Mudan, S Rao, I Chau. Perioperative chemotherapy with or without bevacizumab in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer undergoing liver resection. Clin Colorectal Cancer. 2013 Mar;12(1):15-22.
- B Sharma, A Martin, S Stanway, S R D Johnston and A Constantinidou. Imaging in oncology - over a century of advances. Nat Rev Clin Oncol. 2012 Dec;9(12):728-37.
- A Constantinidou, SM Pollack, RL Jones. MDM2 inhibition in well- and de-differentiated liposarcoma: A step in the right direction. Lancet Oncol. 2012 Nov;13(11):1070-1.
- R L Jones, A Constantinidou, J S Reis-Filho. Molecular Classification of Breast Cancer. Surg Pathol Clin. 2012 Sep;5(3):701-17.
Constantinidou A, Smith I. Is there a case for anti-HER2 therapy without chemotherapy in early breast cancer? Breast 2011 Oct; 20 Suppl 3:S158-61. - Waddell T*, Kotsori A*, Constantinidou A, Yousaf N, Ashley S, Parton M, Allen M, Starling N, Papadopoulos P, O'Brien M, Smith I, Johnston S. Trastuzumab beyond progression in HER2-positive advanced breast cancer: The Royal Marsden experience. Br J Cancer. 2011 May 24;104(11):1675-9.
- A Constantinidou, A Martin, B Sharma, S Johnston. Positron Emission Tomography/ Computed Tomography in the management of recurrent/ metastatic breast cancer: a large retrospective study from the Royal Marsden Hospital. Ann Oncol. 2011 Feb 22 ;(2): 307-314.
- A. Constantinidou, R. L. Jones, Jorge S Reis-Filho. Beyond triple-negative breast cancer - the need to define new subtypes. Expert Rev of Anticancer Ther. 2010 Aug; 10(8): 1197-213.
- A. Constantinidou, R. L. Jones, M. Scurr, O. Al-Muderis, I. Judson. Pegylated liposomal doxorubicin, an effective, well-tolerated treatment for refractory aggressive fibromatosis. Eur J Cancer. 2009 Nov;45(17):2930-4
- Constantinidou A, Hofman M, O’Doherty M, Acland KM, Healy C, Harries M. Routine positron emission tomography and positron emission tomography/computed tomography in melanoma staging with positive sentinel node biopsy is of limited benefit. Melanoma Res. 2008 Feb; 18(1):56-60.