Maria Blasco

Maria Blasco is a distinguished molecular biologist and Basic Research Vice-Director at CNIO (Spanish National Cancer Research Centre).

Following her Ph.D. studies at the Autonoma University, Madrid, Maria Blasco joined the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, USA, to work under the leadership of C.W.Greider. As a Postdoctoral Fellow at CSHL, Prof. Blasco cloned one of the mammalian telomerase genes and generated the first telomerase knockout mouse. She went on to become a Fellow of the Leukaemia Society of America. After leaving the USA in 1997 to move to the Spanish National Centre of Biotechnology, Dr. Blasco joined the CNIO in 2003 as Director of the “Molecular Oncology Programme” and Leader of the “Telomeres and Telomerase” Group.

Maria Blasco’s work has been recognised with a number of honours, such as the FEBS Award, the Swiss Bridge Award to Research in Cancer, the Echevarne Foundation Oncology Award,  the Josef Steiner Cancer Research Award (2003), the EMBO Gold Medal (2004), and the “Carmen & Severo Ochoa” Award to research in Molecular Biology (2005). Most recently, she was the recipient of the prestigious Korber European Science Award (2008).

Dr. Blasco joined the Champalimaud Foundation’s Scientific Committee in 2008.