by Matthew Woolf, Outreach & Education Executive
Whilst dissecting chicken embryos in a lab in her bedroom with homemade scalpels fashioned from sewing needles, Rita Levi-Montalcini’s ascent to the top of the scientific world may have seemed unlikely.
The circumstances that brought her to that position tell a grimly familiar story for Jews in the 20th century. Despite her mathematician father’s initial reluctancy to allow his daughters to attend university, she graduated first in her class in medicine from the University of Turin. She then began a promising new career in research under one of her professors, until Benito Mussolini’s laws banning Jews from academic positions severed her progress before it had begun to flourish, an all too familiar story affecting Jewish scientists across mainland Europe at this time.
And that wasn’t the end of the struggles she faced. Over the course of the next few years, her burgeoning research aspirations were tested. Allied bombing of Italy forced her to relocate, first to the Italian countryside, and then into hiding at the house of non-Jewish friends in Florence.
She survived the horror of the war years, and the end of the war marked the resurgence of her academic journey. She resumed her research in Turin, becoming a prolific academic. Her publications in Italy earned her a one semester research fellowship at Washington University, which she converted into a research associate position she held for 30 years – so highly considered was her work.
It was in this position that she, along with fellow Jewish scientist, Heather Meyer, made her seminal breakthrough, identifying nerve growth factor (NGF) as the protein crucial for neuron growth, within the nervous system. This would have wide ranging implications for the future study of neurological diseases, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinsons, as well as contributing to research on how growth factors can play a significant role in cancer development. This work was awarded with a Nobel prize in medicine and physiology in 1986 and remains fundamental to current medicine and research.
After 30 years at Washington University, Rita returned home to Italy, this time as a celebrated figure. She founded the Institute of Cell Biology in Rome, The European Brain research institute, and was appointed a Senator for life, a position granted to those who have exhibited “outstanding merit in the social, scientific, artistic, or literary field.”
She passed away at the age of 103, the first Nobel prize winner to celebrate their centenary, and her passing was described by the mayor of Rome as a loss “for all humanity.” A far cry from the homemade bedroom lab, she died as a national hero in the place that once forced her to hide.
