In 1998, Hannun moved to the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) to be Chair of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and subsequently recruited Del Poeta as an Assistant Professor in his department in 1999.
[citation needed] During these initial years at MUSC, Del Poeta made the pivotal discovery that fungal sphingolipids were essential for microbial pathogenesis,[3] two concepts that were previously thought to be disparate.
[1] In 2012, Del Poeta was recruited by the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Stony Brook University to continue his research program on the study of lipids, metabolism, and imaging in Infectious Diseases with a focus on pathogenic fungal infections.
[citation needed] Under his leadership, the infectious disease research and care at Stony Brook has expanded, including the establishment of a new lipidomics and metabolomics core facility to collect and analyze biological data at the University.
While at Duke University, Del Poeta met his wife Chiara Luberto,[8] a fellow scientist and biomedical researcher who also made seminal contributions to the sphingolipid field.