After attaining his degree in physics in 1972, he participated in the WA76-OMEGA experiment at CERN; he was also appointed as spokesman[1] of that experiment. Palano participated in the BaBar experiment, at SLAC laboratories, Stanford University. He is currently Full Professor of Physics at the University of Bari.
In 2003 he discovered a new particle, dubbed Ds0*(2317),[2][3][4] unexpected resonance constituted by a charm quark and a strange quark. In the paper[5] in which the discovery of the new particle was reported, there is also an indication about the possible existence of another particle with a mass of about 2460 MeV, the so-called Ds1(2460), subsequently confirmed by the Belle experiment, at the KEK laboratories, in Japan.