Raffaella Santoro studied Chemistry at the University of Rome La Sapienza, Italy where she also obtained her PhD in Biochemistry. She then moved to Germany where she worked at the Hans Knöll Institut, Jena, and at the German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg. In 2007 she moved to ETH Zurich as group leader.
Since 2009, she is group leader at the Department of Molecular Mechanisms of Disease (formerly Institute of Veterinary Biochemistry and Molecular Biology) of the University of Zurich.