Scientific Director of the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), and head of the Telomeres and Telomerase Group (CNIO). She is a molecular biologist devoted to the study of telomeres and telomerase and their role in cancer and ageing, a field of research in which she excels worldwide. Her group also demonstrated that it is possible to delay ageing and age-related diseases by activating the telomerase enzyme. Her work has been published in high impact journals as Cell, Nature or Science, among others.

Blasco has merited vast recognition, both national and international, as the Joseph Steiner Award of Switzerland, the EMBO Gold Medal, the Körber European Science Award of Germany, as well as the Spanish National Research Award in Biology Santiago Ramón y Cajal (2010) and the Premio Jaume I. Furthermore, she was named Chair of SOMMa (‘Severo Ochoa’ Centres and ‘María de Maeztu’ Units of Excellence Alliance) and has received three Doctorate Honoris Causa in Spain: Universidad Carlos III of Madrid (2014), Universidad of Alicante (2017) and Universidad of Murcia (2018). In October 2017 received the Generalitat Valenciana Scientific Award.

She has been an editor and monitoring editor of different scientific journals, as Cancer Research and Journal of Cell Biology, as well as member of several national and international scientific committees. In 2020 also became a member of the Board of Trustees of Museo del Prado (Madrid, Spain).