Carlos Ardavín received a PhD in Immunology at the Complutense University of Madrid in 1983. He subsequenlty joined the University of Paris VI as postdoctoral fellow and, in 1987, he obtained a group leader position as Associated Professor of Cell Biology and Immunology, at the Faculty of Biology of the Complutense University.

From 1990 to 1991 he worked as an invited senior scientist in the laboratory of Ken Shortman at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne (Australia) on the origin of dendritic cells, and from 1993 to 1994 in the laboratory of Robson MacDonald and Hans Acha-Orbea at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in Lausanne (Switzerland), on the role of dendritic cells in T cell negative selection and on B cells during infection by the mouse mammary tumor virus.

In 2004 he joined the Department of Immunology and Oncology at the National Center for Biotechnology (CSIC) as head of the Macrophage and Dendritic Cell Immunobiology Laboratory. His research is currently focused on the immunobiology of monocytes, macrophages and dendritic cells during airway allergy and systemic bacterial and fungal infections and, more recenlty, on the study of the response of the innate immune system of the peritoneal cavity in mouse models of bacterial sepsis and peritoneal metastasis of colorectal tumors.