sentences:  Thanks to his collaboration with Adriano Buzzati-Traverso, Ageno taught at the University of Pavia in 1960-1961, and became a member of the first scientific council of Traverso's Laboratorio Internazionale di Genetica e Biofisica.He left the Istituto Superiore di Sanità for the University of Rome La Sapienza in 1969, to accept the first professorship in Biophysics in Italian history.Becoming famed for his strictness with students, he continued his research in the university setting, focusing on mathematical and physical models for bacterial growth, developing a complex view on the relationships between physics and biology, which are summed up in his book "Che cos'è la vita?