Dr. Sergio Serrano-Villar is an Infectious Diseases specialist at Hospital Ramón y Cajal. He completed his Internal Medicine residency at Hospital Clínico San Carlos (Resident Excellence Award) and earned his PhD with European distinction in 2011 at the Complutense University in Madrid. In 2013 and 2022, he was a visiting researcher at the University of San Francisco, and he received advanced clinical research training through the Río Hortega and Juan Rodés programs of the Instituto de Salud Carlos III. His main interests include persistent immune deficits in people with HIV and the diagnostic and therapeutic potential of the microbiome.

His research on HIV immunopathogenesis helped establish the prognostic utility of the CD4/CD8 ratio and CD8 counts, and clarified how antiretroviral therapy modulates these markers (PLOS Pathogens 2014, Lancet HIV 2021, EBiomedicine 2022, Clinical Infectious Diseases 2023). This work prompted changes in Spanish and European clinical guidelines, enabling him to expand his research group. In microbiome research, he coordinated an ERANET-H2020 project that developed a microbiome-based screening tool for anal cancer (Nature Medicine 2023), leading to patents and a CaixaImpulse award to advance a diagnostic device. He also leads an initiative within a large-scale EDCTP project identifying tuberculosis biomarkers in stool through multiomic approaches. Additional studies have examined immunological responses to microbiome manipulation in HIV (Mucosal Immunology 2017, Nature Communications 2021, Microbiome 2024), and new collaborations focus on the microbiome’s role in cancer immunotherapy and in enhancing cytotoxic responses against latent viruses.
Dr. Serrano has secured continuous funding in competitive national and international calls, authored over 120 publications, filed three patents, supervised four doctoral theses, and received young investigator awards.

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5447-3554