Susana Llanos was born in Madrin in 1969. She graduated in Biology from Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Spain) and carried out her Ph.D. at Instituto de Investigaciones Biomédicas in Madrid supervised by Dr. Alberto Muñoz.

Susana Llanos research activity has always been devoted to the study of the mechanisms involved in cellular transformation and, during the last eleven years, in a more specific manner, in the function and regulation of the p53 tumor suppressor gene. During her PhD training at Dr. Alberto Muñoz´s laboratory she studied the oncogenic role of the v-erbA gene. From 1998 to 2001 she was a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Gordon Peters´ laboratory at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund of London (currently known as Cancer Research UK), where she investigated the molecular mechanisms involved in p53 regulation by p14/ARF. This gene plays a critical role in p53 regulation since it is responsible of its activation in response to oncogenic stimuli. From 2002 to 2004 she joined Dr. Xin Lu´s laboratory at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, in London, where she was involved in the functional characterization of the ASPP gene family. These genes have a key role in p53 regulation since they promote p53 apoptotic response by increasing p53 binding to its responsive elements specifically in pro-apoptotic target promoters.