At Cleveland Clinic, Dr. Blackstone heads a multidisciplinary clinical research team focused on ischemic and valvar heart diseases, heart rhythm disturbances, heart failure (including transplantation, ventricular assist devices and alternatives to transplantation), and benign and malignant diseases of the esophagus and lungs. The research team consists of nearly 50 individuals, while approximately 180 projects are ongoing at any given time.

In addition to generating new knowledge from clinical experiences, his specialty interests include novel mathematical models for analysis of time-related and longitudinal clinical outcomes as well as novel algorithmic approaches, quasi-experimental study design, digital signal processing, mathematical process-control models of the circulatory system and semantic knowledge base/database technology.