Born in Guatemala City, he received a bachelor of science in chemical engineering degree from the University of Dayton in 1948.
In the same year, Bressani returned to Guatemala where he worked at the Institute of Nutrition of Central America and Panama, INCAP.
In 1952, he received a scholarship from the Rockefeller Foundation to study biochemistry at Purdue University, where Bressani obtained his Ph.D. in 1956.
In 1992, he arrived to the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala, and in 1998, he founded the Center for the Studies of Food Science and Technology.
[12] Bressani performed an investigation on practical solutions to nutritional problems within the population of Guatemala and the rest of Central America.