María Antonia Blasco Marhuenda is a distinguished Spanish molecular biologist who served as Director of the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Oncológicas (CNIO) from June 2011 until January 2025. She obtained her PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the Centro de Biología Molecular 'Severo Ochoa' in 1993 under the supervision of the renowned scientist Margarita Salas. Following her doctoral studies, she conducted transformative postdoctoral research at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York with Nobel laureate Carol Greider, where she isolated a key telomerase gene and generated the first telomerase-deficient mouse model. She returned to Spain in 1997 to establish her research group at the Centro Nacional de Biotecnología before joining CNIO in 2003 as Director of the Molecular Oncology Programme and Leader of the Telomeres and Telomerase Group, later becoming Vice-Director of Basic Research in 2005.
For over three decades, Blasco's pioneering research has focused on elucidating the critical role of telomeres and telomerase in cancer development and aging processes, establishing fundamental connections between telomere maintenance mechanisms and disease pathogenesis. Her groundbreaking work on telomerase-deficient mouse models provided definitive evidence of telomerase's importance in chromosomal stability and cancer progression, fundamentally advancing our understanding of cellular immortality in malignant cells. She has published more than 250 papers in prestigious international journals with an impressive h-index of 81, demonstrating the significant impact and global recognition of her scientific contributions. Her discoveries have provided essential insights for developing novel cancer therapies targeting telomere maintenance pathways, with implications extending to age-related diseases and longevity research.
Under her leadership, CNIO strategically diversified its research portfolio, expanding into critical areas including metastasis, cancer metabolism, immunotherapy, and computational biology, with the center securing 6.4 million euros specifically for artificial intelligence research groups. Blasco established the CNIO Innovation Office, which successfully attracted over 41 million euros in industry contracts and generated approximately 8 million euros in annual sales from 2013 to 2024. In 2010, she founded Life Length, a biotechnology company dedicated to developing telomere-based diagnostics for predicting individual healthspan and longevity. Her strategic vision positioned CNIO among the world's top 10 cancer research institutions, recognized internationally for high-impact oncology research while fostering scientific collaboration and translating basic discoveries into practical applications for human health.
