He joined the faculty of University of Oviedo as Professor of Chemistry in 1975 and became Emeritus Professor in 2010 after 35 years of service at the university.
He has supervised 120 Ph.D. students of whom 18 have hold positions as Professors of Chemistry at different Spanish universities. His laboratory has been active in the field of organic chemistry with research interests in synthetic methodology development of transition-metal reagents, stoichiometric and catalytic processes.
He discovered the bis(pyridine)iodonium tetrafluoroborate (IPyBF), an iodinating reagent now named after him which is available from numerous chemical suppliers worldwide. One of his papers on the use of the reagent is his most cited article, with 223 citations through September 2014 according to Google Scholar. Other papers of his on this topic have had as many as 170  and 172 citations.