María Llorens-Martín received her Ph.D. from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid in 2009. In 2010, she joined Professor Jesús Ávila’s lab at the Center for Molecular Biology “Severo Ochoa” (CBMSO) as a postdoctoral fellow. During that period, she investigated adult hippocampal neurogenesis (AHN) alterations in the brains of murine models of Alzheimer’s disease. In 2015, she was awarded a “Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Postdoctoral fellowship for foreign researchers” to undertake a postdoctoral research period at the University of Tsukuba, Japan (Dr. Hideaki Soya´s lab). In 2016, she set up her independent laboratory, which focuses on the basic biology and neuroprotective potential of AHN for the treatment of various diseases. In September 2020, she was awarded a tenured researcher position as Científico Titular at the CBMSO. She has received funding from the European Commission ERC Consolidator Grant 2020 (ERC-CoG-2020), the Alzheimer's Association, the Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration and the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, among others. Some of the studies by her group have been published in journals such as SCIENCE, Nature Medicine, Nature protocols, EMBO J, and Molecular Psychiatry. These works have attracted significant interest from the media (The Scientist, The Scientific American, The Guardian, Le Monde, Il Corriere della sera, El Mundo, El País, La Razón and ABC).

Throughout her career, she has obtained several research awards, including CIBERNED Young Investigator Award (2014); “Miguel Catalán” Young Investigator Award (2019); “Young Female Talent Award of the Spanish Royal Academy of Sciences (2019); and Pfizer Young Investigators Award 2022 (confidential until Oct 25 2022)). She is full member of the Spanish Young Academy (2021-2026), European Academy (since 2022) and AcademiaNet (since 2022). Moreover, she has served as a member of the International Research Council for the Alzheimer's Association since July 2022. She has published 63 manuscripts, which have been cited more than 4900 times, and has an h-index of 37 and an i10-index of 52.