During the following two years, he worked on the largest sample (at the time) of optical rotation curves of galaxies at the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA), in Trieste.
He was coordinator of the Graduate School of Molecular Genetics, International School of Advanced Studies (SISSA), Trieste (1988 to 2001) and Professor of Molecular Biology, Scuola Normale Superiore (SNS), Pisa, Italy from 2004 to his last breath.
He was in 1973/74 a postdoc at the University of Milan, from 1977 to 1981 an assistant at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, from 1981 to 1983 at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center of IBM, from 1984 to 1990 associate professor for physics at SISSA in Trieste (in 1990/91 as full professor) and from 1991 to 1999 professor for physics at the University of Geneva (and director of the IRRMA of the ETH Lausanne).