Salvatore studied medicine at the
University of Naples Federico II and, after graduating, travelled to Paris to work at the
Collège de France with the endocrinologist
Jean Roche. During his time in Paris from 1956 to 1958, he developed an interest in endocrinology and particularly the
thyroid gland. He returned to Naples in 1959 and continued to collaborate with Roche on research into thyroid diseases at the
Stazione Zoologica. In 1961, he moved to
Marseille before relocating again in 1962 to the United States, where he worked in
Jacob Robbins and
Joseph Edward Rall's laboratory at the
National Institutes of Health (NIH) in
Bethesda, Maryland, until 1964. Salvatore returned to Naples in 1964, where he hosted many foreign investigators, and continued to visit laboratories across Europe and the United States. He intermittently spent time at the NIH in Bethesda, where he was a professor of general pathology between 1972 and 1974, and received a NIH Fogarty Scholarship in 1977. He headed the Centre of Experimental Endocrinology and Oncology of the Italian
National Research Council (CNR) from 1972 to 1997 and served as dean of the University of Naples Federico II medical school from 1981 to 1997. He was also president of Stazione Zoologica from 1987 and chair of the CNR Committee for Biotechnology from 1994, both until his death in 1997. He successfully advocated for the introduction of
iodised salt to prevent
endemic goitre and universal
newborn screening for
congenital hypothyroidism in Italy. ==Research==