![]() But in 1943, she was forced to flee a heavily bombed Turin and head to Florence. Here, she described the phenomena of atrophie très pronocée, caractérisée par la conglutination des neurofibrilles dans une masse homogène et par l’atrophie du noyau. In 1942, she published a paper in the French journal Extrait des Archives de Biologie that dealt with early ideas on the consequences of neurodegeneration in the developing chicken embryo, a process now recognized as occurring via programmed cell death. She worked briefly in Brussels before returning to work in Turin with Giuseppe Levi, in the field now known as apoptosis. In so doing, she was inspired by the early scientific work of Viktor Hamburger on the effects of wing bud extirpation on the development of the central nervous system in chick embryos, pioneered by Drs Lillie and Shorey, who demonstrated the role of unilateral bud extirpation on the developing nervous system. She died in Rome on December 30, 2012, at the age of 103.In 1936, Rita graduated in Medicine and Surgery, and began a specialization in neurology and psychiatry. Rita continued conducting research every day, till the very end. In 2001, Italy honoured her by making her senator for life. ![]() She created an educational foundation in 1992 and set up the European Brain Research Institute in 2002. She firmly believed that women could do the work if given the opportunity. Rita strongly supported women in her own lab and work. As the first Italian woman to receive a Nobel Prize in science, Rita became a role model not only for women aspiring to be scientists, but for every woman. She was one of the only 25 women to have won in the 93-year history of the Nobel Prize, and of those 25, only five have won in medicine and physiology. She helped establish the Institute of Cell Biology in Rome and became its first director in 1962.įor the NGF discovery, Rita Levi-Montalcini and her colleague Stanley Cohen were awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine. RITA LEVI MONTALCINI FULLIn 1956, Rita became an associate professor and a full professor in 1958. There, in 1951, she discovered the so called “nerve growth factor” (NGF), a humoral factor that plays an essential role in the growth and differentiation of sensory and sympathetic nerve cells. Louis, under the supervision of Professor Viktor Hamburger where she ended up staying for thirty years. In 1946, Rita was invited to Washington University in St. Regardless of the ban from the university, she transformed her own bedroom into her first genetics laboratory to continue her research on the growth of nerve fibers in chick embryos. RITA LEVI MONTALCINI PROFESSIONALAfter graduating summa cum laude in 1936 from the University of Turin, she worked as Giuseppe Levi´s assistant but her academic career was interrupted by Benito Mussolini´s 1938 Manifesto of Race and the introduction of laws preventing Jews from academic and professional careers. Once she entered the University of Turin, the neurophysiologist Giuseppe Levi introduced her to the developing nervous system. Eventually, she convinced her father she wanted to be a doctor and within eight months, she made up the gaps in her education and entered medical school. ![]() ![]() When she told her father about her decision of studying medicine and becoming a doctor, he objected that it was a long and difficult course of study, unsuitable for a woman. She did not agree with the idea that a woman has to be a perfect wife and mother. However, Rita wanted to become neither a wife nor a mother. Her father, Adamo Levi discouraged his daughters from attending college since he believed that “a professional career would interfere with the duties of a wife and a mother”. Rita grew up in an observant family, in the post-Victorian era which was dominated by a patriarchal culture. In her biography, “In Praise of Imperfection” (1988), she wrote that “the subordinate role played by the female in a society run entirely by men made the status of a wife less than attractive”. Rita Levi-Montalcini was born in Turin, Italy on 22 April 1909 and was one of the world´s most prominent scientific investigators of the human body’s nervous system. ![]()
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