Very likely there's no connection at all (or at least none known) between whatever he was working on and ECC. Just as there's no particular connection between R

Very likely there's no connection at all (or at least none known) between whatever he was working on and ECC. Just as there's no particular connection between RSA cryptography (which makes use of prime numbers hundreds of digits long) and most of the things pure mathematicians studying prime numbers are interested in. (Of course it's always risky saying "no connection at all" about two things in mathematics, where sometimes very surprising connections turn up.)