Paolo A. Ascierto obtained his medical degree from the University of Naples Federico II, Italy, where he subsequently earned his board certification in oncology. He went on to serve consecutive positions as a postdoctoral fellow and then as Vice Director of the Department of Clinical Immunology at the National Cancer Institute IRCCS, Fondazione G. Pascale, in Naples, Italy. He is currently Director of the Department of Skin Cancers, Cancer Immunotherapy and Development Therapeutics at that same institution. 

Professor Ascierto has been the coordinator of the Italian Association of Medical Oncology (AIOM) clinical practice guidelines for melanoma since 2011 and of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) clinical practice guidelines for melanoma and skin cancers since January 2022. He is also part of the panel for the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) melanoma guideline.

Professor Ascierto is an Associate Editor of Annals of Oncology for Onco-Immunology and the Journal of Immunotherapy of Cancer. He is the Deputy Editor and Chief Section Editor for the Combination Strategies section of the Journal of Translational Medicine, and a member of the Editorial Board of ESMO Open. He has authored over 680 publications in peer-reviewed journals, including The New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, Lancet Oncology, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Nature Medicine, JAMA Oncology, and Annals of Oncology. He has been a valued invited speaker at more than 600 national and international meetings.

Professor Ascierto is an active member of AIOM, ASCO, ESMO, and of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC). He has joined the ESMO Educational Publications Working Group in 2024.
As Principal Investigator, he has presided on over 160 clinical trials and his major research interests are skin cancers molecular biology, assessment of molecular markers for tumour progression in melanoma, biochemical and immunological monitoring, targeted therapies, vaccination treatments and immunotherapy of solid tumours, and combination approaches for cancer treatment.