 He was the discoverer of the genetic parasexual recombination in antibiotic-producing "Penicillium" and "Streptomyces" species.He was vice-president of the XIV International Congress of Genetics held in Moscow and he was appointed as president of the International Committee of the Working Group on Genetics of Industrial Microorganisms.In 1994 Sermonti attended an AIDS denial conference in Bologna where he spoke on the damages of campaigning against AIDS rather than HIV.