In 1958 Dr. Vassalle's aspirations enticed him to go to New York, a beautiful city that he deeply loves. He was then Acting Chief Resident in Medicine at the French Hospital in Manhattan, having been awarded a Fulbright Travel Grant to come to America.
After one year, his interest in research drove him to devote himself full time to the experimental study of the function of the heart. His clinical experience has substantially influenced his research activity in the field of spontaneous activity of the heart under normal and abnormal conditions.
In 1959, Dr. Vassalle was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Cardiovascular Research and Training Program in the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Medical College of Georgia, Augusta, Georgia, under the direction of Professors William F. Hamilton and Raymond P. Ahlquist, scientists well known in the physiology and pharmacology of the cardiovascular system. In 1960, Dr. Vassalle was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Physiology, State University of New York, Downstate Medical Center at Brooklyn, New York, under the direction of Prof. Brian F. Hoffman, who is one of the top scientists in the field of cardiac electrophysiology.
In 1962-1964, with the help of a grant of N.I.H., Dr. Vassalle worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Physiologisches Institut, University Bern, Bern, Switzerland, under the guidance of Prof. Silvio Weidmann, the initiator of cardiac electrophysiology. In Bern, Dr. Vassalle was the second to apply the method of voltage clamping to a cardiac tissue and the first to demonstrate the ionic mechanism responsible for the diastolic depolarization (pacemaker potential) in Purkinje fibers.
In 1964, Dr. Vassalle went back to the Department of Physiology, Downstate Medical Center, in New York, where he has remained since, continuing his work in the field of cardiac electrophysiology. Here, he and his co-workers have used a variety of preparations and methods to study different problems. At the State University of New York, Dr. Vassalle progressed from Visiting Assistant Professor (1964) to Assistant Professor, Associate Professor and Full Professor (1971). Since July 2006, he is Professor Emeritus of Physiology and Pharmacology. He has been Visiting Professor at numerous national and international Universities.
Up to the present time, Prof. Vassalle has edited 4 books, published 56 reviews, 176 original papers e 165 abstracts. He also published 5 books of poems and 3 books of aphorisms and philosophical essays. During his career, he received the financial support for his research activity from N.I.H. and the American Heart Association. Among the honors that Prof . Vassalle has received is a Laurea ad Honorem on the occasion of the 600th Anniversary of the foundation of the University of Ferrara.
He is a member of several scientific societies and has been invited to speak at numerous national and international meetings (United States, Canada, Holland, France, Argentina, Italy, Taiwan, Switzerland, Mexico, Japan and China). He has been an Associate Editor of the American Journal of Physiology, Heart and Circulatory Physiology, member of the Editorial Board and editorial consultant of several journals of different countries. He has been a consultant for N.I.H site visits, member ad hoc for per "study sections" and regular member of the Cardiopulmonary Study Section of N.I.H. Young researchers have come to his laboratory for training from the United States, Italy, Chile, Argentina, Japan, Taiwan, China, Mexico, etc. In addition, Prof. Vassalle has trained in his laboratory several graduate students in the theory of and experimentation in cardiac physiology toward the Ph.D. degree.