Dr. Sonia Serna obtained her PhD in Organic Chemistry in 2005 from the University of the Basque Country (EHU) under the supervision of Prof Dr Esther Domínguez Pérez with a dissertation focused on developing new synthetic methodologies using hypervalent iodine reagents.

During her doctoral studies, she did a research stay in the group of Prof. Dr Erick M. Carreira at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH-Zürich), working on the design and preparation of novel chiral ligands for asymmetric catalysis. After her doctoral studies, she worked as a researcher at Planta Piloto de Química Fina (University of Alcalá), synthesising and scaling up active pharmaceutical ingredients for pharma companies.

In 2007, she joined the laboratory of Prof. Manuel Martín-Lomas and Dr. Niels Reichardt at CIC biomaGUNE as a postdoctoral researcher, where she currently continues as a research associate.

Her current research focusses on studying the role of carbohydrates in biological systems, utilising a combination of chemical synthesis, enzymatic modifications, and mass spectrometry. She is responsible for the microarray equipment of CICbiomaGUNE, which produces carbohydrate and protein microarrays that are then used in basic research to study protein-carbohydrate interactions as well as in the study of biomarkers for various pathologies such as cancer, AIDS, allergies, and bacterial infections.