Rita Levi-Montalcini

Rita Levi-Montalcini (Turin, April 22, 1909 - Rome, December 30, 2012) was an Italian neurologist. He discovered the first known growth factor in the nervous system, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1986, shared with Stanley Cohen. His findings have been instrumental in understanding the control mechanisms that regulate growth. of the cells.

Adolescence and youth

She was born in Turin on April 22, 1909, the youngest of four children along with her twin sister Paola (who would excel as an artist). Her father, Adamo Levi, was an electrical engineer with good math skills, and her mother, Adele Montalcini, a painter.

The brother, Gino, studied architecture (and became highly respected in his profession). However, the traditional-minded Adamo Levi frowned upon women pursuing careers that might take them away from their duties as mothers and wives. Older sister Anna passed on to Rita her fondness for the Swedish writer Selma Lagerlöf, to the point of wanting to dedicate herself to writing. But when Rita was 19 years old, her former nanny and family friend Giovanna died of cancer, and that fact contributed, along with her independent spirit, to her decision to study medicine. She finally got the support of her father. She had to take a free exam in Latin, Greek and mathematics to obtain the degree that gave her access to the University, and she enrolled in the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Turin.

There she made friends with two of her classmates, Salvador Luria and Renato Dulbecco, who would receive the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine a few years before her. The three were students of the famous histologist Giuseppe Levi (no relation to her), who exerted a great influence on them, mainly by transmitting to them the rigor with which scientific questions must be approached. Rita graduated in 1936 and began her studies in specialty in neurology and psychiatry. At that time, she still did not know if she was going to practice as a doctor or go into research. In any case, she stayed at the University as Giuseppe Levi's assistant. But the events precipitated.

Difficulties during the Mussolini regime

In 1937, his scientific career was about to be cut short. Rita came, through her paternal branch, from a Sephardic Jewish family whose roots were documented as far back as the Roman Empire. She found herself, then, in the peephole of Mussolini's «Il manifesto della Razza», and of the consequent laws that denied Jews, among other things, access to research positions. That same year she moved to Belgium and worked as a visiting researcher at a neurobiological institute in Brussels.

In 1940, with the imminent invasion of Belgium by the Germans, he returned to Turin with his family. In his bedroom he installed a small laboratory. An article by Viktor Hamburger on the effects of limb removal on chicken embryos had inspired him to study the growth of nerve fibers in these animals.

In September 1943 he had to flee again. In a town south of Florence, she and her family survived until the end of the war, with the help of non-Jewish friends. The work she developed in these precarious conditions, on substances known today as neurotrophic factors, was the basis for much of her subsequent research.

Academic career after World War II

After the war, he returned to Turin and to his work at the University. In 1947, Viktor Hamburger offered her a research associate position at Washington University in St. Louis, which she accepted and held for 30 years. There she discovered the protein released by nerve cells that attracts growth of the branches of neighboring neurons. In 1952 she achieved her most relevant result: she isolated the "nerve growth factor" (FCN, or NGF, from Neural Growth Factor ), a substance released by the tumor that stimulates the growth of the nerves. In subsequent years, she combined her work in St. Louis, when she was already a professor, with other positions in Italy; she started and chaired several laboratories and research centers in Rome.

In the 1990s, he was one of the first researchers to point out the importance of mast cells in human pathology. In that same decade, he identified the endogenous compound palmitoylethanolamide as an important modulator of these cells.

Her most emblematic award was the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, with which she was awarded in 1986, but she received many other honors, both scientific and related to human values; some fees, many others due to her merits. She also held political positions, always honorary: in 2001 she was appointed senator for life by the President of the Italian Republic, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi.

On April 22, 2009, he became the first Nobel laureate to reach 100 years of age.

"At one hundred years, I have a mind that is superior to that which I had at 20, thanks to the experience. »

A single event marred, to a certain extent, her extraordinary career as a scientist and humanitarian-focused person. The episode is related to the Italian pharmaceutical company FIDIA, with which Rita Levi-Montalcini collaborated contributing to a better understanding of gangliosides. In 1975, she supported a FIDIA drug based on these substances, obtained from bovine nervous tissue, which a few years later had serious side effects in some patients, to the point that the drug had to be withdrawn. The Minister of Health was accused of having accepted bribes from FIDIA in exchange for speeding up the authorization process, the researcher was criticized for having collaborated with the company, and the fairness of the decision to award her the Nobel Prize was questioned.

But that episode was already a long way off on December 30, 2012, the day he died in Rome at the age of 103, an occasion on which the world's media focused on his scientific work at the same time than their human contributions, in particular their efforts to contribute to the formation of young women.

"After centuries of lethargy, young women can now look to a future shaped by their own hands. »

Personality and opinions

"He seemed able to face with the same equanimity the rigors of the fascist cruelty he suffered as a person of Jewish descent; the problems of practicing clandestine medicine at the time of war; the difficulties posed by prejudice and discrimination against women; and the challenges of those who work in the forefront of science, which can generate a feeling of loneliness. »

Check it out in The Guardian.

Rita Levi-Montalcini always had words of praise for her parents, emphasizing that she was raised in a loving family environment where culture was valued and intellectual efforts were appreciated.

During the war, he was in contact with partisans of the “Partido D'Azione”. She considered joining them and fighting on the front lines, but she did not want to endanger her family.She contributed to the cause by forging documents, and helped as a volunteer nurse and doctor at the Anglo-American barracks where the soldiers were brought. refugees.

Religion was never a problem for her:

"Although declaring myself lay or better, agnostic and freethinking, I envy those who have faith and I consider myself deeply "believing" if by religion it is understood to believe in good and ethical behavior: if these principles are not pursued, life is not worth living."

Awards and Honors

• 1968: He was the tenth woman elected as a member of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States.
• 1983: received, together with Stanley Cohen and Viktor Hamburger, the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize in Biology and Biochemistry at Columbia University
• 1986: Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, together with Stanley Cohen.
• 1987: National Medal of Science, the highest recognition of the American scientific community.
• 1999: appointed FAO Goodwill Ambassador.
• 2000: appointed senator of vitality by the president of the Italian republic Carlo Azeglio Ciampi.
• 2005: the headquarters of the European Institute of Neuroscience opened in Rome.
• 2006: he was awarded the honorary doctorate in biomedical engineering at the Turin Polytechnic in his hometown.
• 2008: received the honorary doctorate degree from the Complutense University of Madrid.
• 2011: She was researched "honoris causa" by McGill University.

Other acknowledgments

In April 2016, an orchid was named after him: 'Ophrys × montalciniae,' a hybrid between Ophrys incubacea and Ophrys sphegodes.