[3] Napoli continued her Rhizobium research in the laboratory of Peter Albersheim[4] at the University of Colorado Boulder and later the lab of Larry Gold[5] in the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology.
[6] Transitioning from academia to industry, Napoli joined collaborator Richard A. Jorgensen at the Oakland-based agricultural biotechnology company Advanced Genetic Sciences, Inc. (AGS) which was acquired later by DNA Plant Technology Corporation.
[8][9] These observations documented by Napoli and Jorgensen are examples of "co-suppression,"[1] – a post transcriptional gene silencing mechanism predating the discovery of RNA interference (RNAi).
From DNAP, Napoli accepted a faculty position in the Department of Environmental Horticulture at the University of California, Davis (UCD) where she deployed a strategy of ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS) to produce mutations in both Petunia and Arabidopsis seeds.
[11] Following UCD, Napoli joined the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Arizona (UA) where she focused on designing and distributing resources to the Arabidopsis and maize research communities under the auspices of an National Science Foundation Plant Genome Research Program[12] grant led by Jorgensen and Vicki Chandler.