As a graduate student, he discovered two major pathways that regulate cell polarity in migrating fibroblasts. He then investigated how newly synthesized messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) is exported from the nucleus and then targeted to specific sites in the cytoplasm of mammalian cells, such as the surface of the endoplasmic reticulum. Besides his work on mRNA export and localization, Dr. Palazzo is interested in how biological information is extracted from the mammalian genome. He has published several well regarded reviews on how mRNA processing and nuclear export is used to sort useful information from a genome that is mostly filled with junk DNA.