Carola García de Vinuesa graduated in Medicine and obtained her PhD in England. She obtained a professorship at the Australian National University where she was head of the Department of Immunology. She founded and co-directed the Center for Personalized Immunology in Australia and at Renji Hospital in Shanghai.

She is now deputy director of research at the Francis Crick Institute in London. She is also an elected member of the Royal Society of London. Her discoveries include new types of T lymphocytes, the genetic cause of lupus, and the death of the daughters of Australian woman Kathleen Folbigg. Her research contributed to the exoneration and release of Folbigg, who was imprisoned for 20 years for the murder of her four daughters.