Rita Levi-Montalcini in 2009 at age 100.
By the Presidency of the Italian Republic. https://snl.no/Rita_Levi-Montalcini
Rita Levi-Montalcini was an Italian neurobiologist who was able to begin a successful career as a scientist despite the dangers she faced as a Jew in Fascist Italy during World War II. She later went on to win the Nobel Prize for her co-discovery of nerve growth factor. Levi-Montalcini was born in 1909 in Turin, Italy and she studied medicine at the University of Turin, graduating in 1936. She studied for a year at a neurological institute in Brussels after Italian dictator Mussolini banned non-Aryans from professional careers.
Levi-Montalcini returned to Italy in 1939, shortly after the start of World War II. During the war, Levi-Montalcini had to hide inside of her house because of her Jewish ancestry. However, she was determined to continue her studies, so she converted her bedroom into a research laboratory. In her bedroom laboratory, she used fertilized chicken eggs to study the development of the nervous system. During this time and in her studies after the war, she discovered that when the nervous system is developing in embryos, nerve cells spread all over the body, and cells that do not connect to targets (such as muscles) die. These discoveries of Levi-Montalcini are often credited to other scientists, but scientists are now working to get Levi-Montalcini her proper credit in neurological textbooks.
After World War II, Levi-Montalcini began working at the University of Turin again, and in 1947 she was invited to Washington University, where she collaborated with Viktor Hamburger, another neurobiologist. In 1962 she established the Institute of Cell Biology in Rome, and she split her time between working in Rome and at Washington University. She later became the first director of the Institute of Cell Biology from 1969 to 1978.
Levi-Montalcini won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1986, along with Stanley Cohen, for their discovery of nerve growth factor (NGF), a substance in the body that influences the growth of nerve cells. Levi-Montalcini and Viktor Hamburger discovered that there was a substance in a certain type of mouse tumor that promoted the growth of nerve cells; Stanley Cohen was able to separate NGF from the tumors. The discovery of NGF taught scientists more about how the nervous system works and may help future scientists to fight against cancer and neural disorders, including dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
Levi-Montalcini was awarded the National Medal of Science in 1987, and in 2001 she was appointed as a Senator for Life by the Italian Prime Minister in honor of her
contributions to science. In 2002 she founded the European Brain Research Institute and she has also founded the Rita Levi-Montalcini Foundation, which provides tools and scholarships to African women. Levi-Montalcini died in 2012 in Rome at the age of 103.
About The Author
Marcella is currently a sophomore at Northwood High School. She is interested in biodiversity and animal behavior, and she plans to work in Conservation Biology. She plays the piano and also enjoys reading, baking, and being outside.
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Goldstein, Bob. “A Lab of Her Own”. Nautilus, 1 December 2021,
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Levi-Montalcini, Rita. “Rita Levi-Montalcini – Biographical”. Les Prix Nobel. Nobel Foundation,
1987, Electronically Published by NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach AB, https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1986/levi-montalcini/biographical/. Accessed 29 December 2021.
“Rita Levi-Montalcini” Women who changed science. The Nobel Prize. The Nobel Prize
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