Andrea Carlino obtained a Master's degree in history from La Sapienza University in Rome in 1983, followed by a PhD from San Marino University in 1991. He has been a researcher at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris and at the European University Institute in Florence. He joined the University of Geneva Faculty of Medicine in 1996, first as a research and teaching fellow at the Institute of the History of Medicine - now the Institute for Ethics, History, and the Humanities (IEH2) - then as a senior lecturer. He was appointed associate professor in 2015. He has also taught as a visiting professor at the Ecole Normale Supérieure (Paris) and at the University of Western Australia. 

As a specialist in Renaissance medicine, he works on the history of anatomy and of the body, the relationship between medicine and humanist culture, and the history of uncertainty in medicine. In recent years, he has turned his attention to corporality and biopolitics in the contemporary world. He is also very involved in teaching the societal and historical dimensions of medicine, and since 2012 has been leading interdisciplinary research into the history and memory of tarantism and of European possession in the modern era. He retires from the Faculty of Medicine in September 2025.