Rita Levi-Montalcini

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Rita Levi Montalcini (born April 22, 1909 in Turin) is an Italian neurologist who, together with colleague Stanley Cohen, received the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discovery of growth factors.

Born in Turin to a Sephardic Jewish family, she decided to go to medical school after seeing a close family friend die of cancer. Levi Montalcini overcame the objections of her father - who believed that "a professional career would interfere with the duties of a wife and mother" - and enrolled in the Turin medical school in 1930, studying with Giuseppe Levi and graduating in 1936. She went to work as his assistant, however, her academic career was cut short by Mussolini's 1938 Manifesto della Razza and the subsequent introduction of laws barring Jews from academic and professional careers. During World War II, she conducted experiments from a home laboratory, studying the growth of nerve fibers in chicken embryos which laid the groundwork for much of her later research. Her first genetics laboratory was in her bedroom at her home. In 1943, her family fled south to Florence, and she set up a laboratory there also. Her family returned to Turin in 1945.

In September of 1946 Levi Montalcini accepted an invitation to Washington University in St. Louis, under the supervision of Professor Victor Hamburger. Although the initial invitation was for one semester, she stayed for thirty years. It was here that she did her most important work: isolating nerve growth factor (NGF) from observations of certain cancerous tissues that cause extremely rapid growth of nerve cells in 1952. She was made a Full Professor in 1958, and in 1962 established a research unit in Rome, dividing the rest of her time between there and St. Louis.

From 1961 to 1969 she directed the Research Center of Neurobiology of the CNR (Rome), and from 1969 to 1978 the Laboratory of Cellular Biology.

In 1968, she was the tenth woman elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences.

In 1986 Levi Montalcini and collaborator Stanley Cohen received the Nobel Prize in Medicine, as well as the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research. This made her the fourth Nobel Prize winner to come from Italy's small (<50,000) Jewish community, after Emilio Segrè, Salvador Luria (a university colleague and friend) and Franco Modigliani.

In 2000, her twin sister Paola Levi Montalcini, a popular artist, died.

In 2001 she was nominated as Senator-for-life by Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi.

In April 28 and 29, 2006, Levi-Montalcini, aged 97, attended the opening assembly of the newly-elected Senate of Italy which brought to the appointment of the new Speaker, and declared her preference for the centre-left candidate Franco Marini. However, Levi-Montalcini, who is the senior member of the Upper House, renounced to be the temporary president in the circumstance. She's currently the oldest living laureate and she will be the longest-lived laureate if she lives past January 5 2007.

References

• Levi Montalcini, Rita, In Praise of Imperfection: My Life and Work. Basic Books, New York, 1988.
• Yount, Lisa (1996). Twentieth Century Women Scientists. New York: Facts on File. ISBN 0-8160-3173-8.
• Muhm, Myriam : Vage Hoffnung für Parkinson-Kranke - Überlegungen der Medizin-Nobelpreisträgerin Rita Levi Montalcini , Süddeutsche Zeitung, Nr. 293, 22. Dezember 1986 [link]

External links

• [Autobiography at the Nobel e-Museum]
• [Article in German]

 

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