Levi-Montalcini was the first Italian woman to receive a Nobel Prize in a scientific category, and the fourth woman to receive a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. She was barely thirty when she made the discovery. Yet, it would take about three-quarters of Rita Levi-Montalcini’s lifetime to receive the same recognition she witnessed for many of her male peers in the scientific field.
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About 40 years later, in 1986, Levi-Montalcini was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering the nerve growth factor (NGF), known as “the Rosetta Stone” of the nervous system and its interconnected organ systems.
She battled sexism, fascism, and anti-semitism on the run and in hiding while working in a secret laboratory she built in her bedroom amid the horrors of Fascism in Nazi-occupied Italy. There, she uncovered a key mystery of developmental biology and the secrets of how the nervous system works.
It is no wonder this badass first lady of science was the first Nobel Laureate who lived to be 100 years old – and then some.
Early Life and Education
The barriers she faced as a young Italian Jewish woman during the rise of Fascism in Italy impacted Levi-Montalcini’s early life and education. But she turned the restrictions imposed on her into a drive that fueled her journey to become a trailblazing woman of science.
Born in Turin, Italy in 1909, Levi-Montalcini grew up in an Italian Jewish household, raised alongside her three sisters and brother by her mother Adele Montalcini, her father Adamo Levi, and her nanny Giovanna. The family was loving and close-knit, but Levi-Montalcini’s father believed that a woman’s duty was to be a wife and mother. He forbade his daughters from pursuing academic studies and professions that he thought would take them out of the home.
But Levi-Montalcini had very different plans. She had no desire to get married or have children and was determined to pursue academic studies and a career.
In 1929, the family suffered a tragic loss when Giovanna died of stomach cancer. Giovanna had been like a second mother to Levi-Montalcini.
It was then that Levi-Montalcini’s academic aspirations found “a focus,” and she decided to study medicine, explains biographer and science writer Catherine Whitlock in her book, Ten Women Who Changed Science and the World. Levi-Montalcini convinced her father to let her pursue her dreams of studying medicine.
When she entered the University of Turin, she was one of seven women among the three hundred men in the class cohort.
At medical school, Levi-Montalcini was impressed by the work of histologist and professor Giuseppe Levi. His passion for histology proved to be infectious and would change the course of Rita Levi-Montalcini’s academic work and her life.
In 1932, she began advanced studies in neurology and psychology while working at the university’s neurobiology laboratory.
In 1933, the Nazi party seized power in Germany, and “the first signs of Italian anti-Semitism appeared around this time,” explains Whitlock.
Rita Levi-Montalcini filled her days with work, juggling her time between attending to patients and projects in Levi’s laboratory.
After graduating with high distinction in the field of medicine and surgery in 1936, she continued working as a doctor and as a researcher at the university. But in 1938, Mussolini’s “race laws” changed all of that.
“Because of the racial laws, I had been dismissed both from my academic position at the Institute of Anatomy and from the Neurological Clinic, and deprived of the right to practise medicine,” remembered Rita Levi-Montalcini in her memoir.
Banned from practising medicine and research in Italy, in 1939, Levi-Montalcini responded to a lucrative invitation to work with the director of a neurology institute in Brussels. However, the opportunity was short-lived; about 10 months later she headed home when news broke that Germany was preparing to invade Belgium.
Scientific Contributions
Exiled with her family in Turin, Rita Levi-Montalcini refused to give up pursuing her research, especially after a visit from her Anatomy Institute coworker and friend Rudolpho Amprino in the autumn of 1940. Amprino urged her to open her laboratory to continue her research, and Rita Levi-Montalcini rose to the challenge. In her autobiography, she described the pleasure in anticipating not only the work itself but the fact that she was pursuing it despite the restrictive barriers in place.
Banished from university, it was there in her bedroom she transformed unconventional tools like ordinary sewing needles, watchmaker’s forceps, and the tiny scissors of an ophthalmologist into highly sophisticated, hybrid laboratory tools.
Inspired by the 1934 article written by embryologist Viktor Hamburger, Rita Levi-Montalcini continued studying the motor neurons of chick embryos under a microscope. Her work on chicken embryos tackled a key question in developmental biology: How do nerves grow out from an embryonic nervous system, find and target cell development?
Rita Levi-Montalcini was determined to find what mysterious factor was behind this process. She published papers about her findings in Belgian journals because Jewish scientists were banned from publishing their work in Italy. As aerial bombs rained over Turin, she packed up her lab and carried it to the cellar.
“Almost every night, the lugubrious whine of sirens, warning of British planes overhead, forced us to go down into the basement despite the risks – which became tragic reality for hundreds of people – of being buried under the ruins of bombed buildings,” she reflected many years later in her memoir.
Rita Levi-Montalcini and her family headed to the country, to the Astigiano highlands about one hour outside Turin.
She set up the laboratory on a small table in the corner of the room used by the family as a dining and sitting room.
After Mussolini was at last overthrown in 1943, the German Nazis occupied Italy and began rounding up Jews. Rita Levi-Montalcini and her family fled to the south. With the war continuing to wage across Italy and surrounding countries in Europe and North Africa, she volunteered as a doctor in refugee camps.
When the war finally ended, Rita Levi-Montalcini received an invitation from Hamburger to come to Washington University in the United States. Hamburger wanted to know more about the results of Levi-Montalcini’s work with chick embryos, which had produced results quite distinct from his.
Washington University in St. Louis became Rita Levi-Montalcini’s new “home” base, where she would continue to pursue her research for the next 30 years.
In 1947, she conducted an experiment using small pieces of a mouse sarcoma tumour, which demonstrated that the tumour cells could help cell neurons survive. The experiment also showed the cells released a nerve-growth-promoting factor.
In the 1950s, Stanley Cohen joined Rita Levi-Montalcini and Hamburger in their journey to identify the nerve growth factor. Levi-Montalcini used Cohen’s method to examine mammalian salivary glands and found that these contained high levels of nerve growth factor activity.
The culmination of this collaborative research led to the formal identification of the nerve growth factor, published in three papers during the 1960s.
With her discovery of the nerve growth factor, the contributions of Rita Levi-Montalcini to neuroscience were unprecedented.
“This discovery opened up a whole world of understanding of how the nervous system develops and the importance of growth factors in health and disease,” explains Whitlock.
Levi-Montalcini’s contributions to neuroscience continue to evolve in the present and into the future.
Nobel Prize and Recognition
Flash forward about 35 years later, Levi-Montalcini was 77 years old when she received the Nobel Prize. Even after finally receiving the long-due recognition, she remained very humble about her achievements.
In Levi-Montalcini’s Nobel Prize speech, she modestly credited “luck” along with the collaboration of her peers (particularly Levi, Hamburger, and Cohen) saying that the honour “should be shared.”
In her speech, Levi-Montalcini paid an emotional tribute to her beloved mentor, her medical school professor Giuseppe Levi. She named her time as a student of Levi as a key “event” in her life which led to the important discovery of NGF.
Levi-Montalcini said it was Levi to whom the scientific community should feel indebted.
“All his students were infected by his tremendous enthusiasm, by his dedication, by his profound knowledge, and by his ethical behaviour which he showed courageously during the Second World War,” she told a crowd of her contemporaries and the Nobel committee.
She also pointed out that two of her male peers, who had also been Levi’s students, had already been honoured with the Nobel Prize: Salvador Luria (in 1969) and Renato Dulbecco (in 1975).
Levi-Montalcini received numerous awards before and after winning the Nobel Prize, including the National Medal of Science in 1987, which is considered the highest scientific honour in the United States. She became a senator for life in Italy in 2001.
Her Legacy
In Italy, 100 years after Levi-Montalcini’s birth, the Italian national postal service issued a stamp in her honour and memory.
Today, the Levi-Montalcini Foundation, an international nonprofit that “aims to fight the intellectual and moral poverty in the world,” serves to promote educational programs and help young women in Africa obtain an education in the STEM fields.
In recognition of her accomplishments in the scientific field and humanitarian work, Levi-Montalcini received a standing ovation in the Italian Senate.
“I should thank the Jews for Mussolini’s racial laws,” she once said. “Because of the laws, I have been saved from mediocrity.”
Her groundbreaking discovery of the nerve growth factor not only revolutionised our understanding of the nervous system but also paved the way for advancements in neuroscience and medicine that continue to impact lives today.
Her journey from a young Italian Jewish woman facing immense adversity to becoming a Nobel Laureate and a symbol of scientific excellence is an inspiring reminder of the power of determination, passion, and intellectual curiosity. Levi-Montalcini’s legacy lives on through the countless scientists she has inspired and the educational initiatives she championed, particularly those aimed at empowering women in STEM fields.
As we reflect on her extraordinary contributions, let us draw inspiration from her words and her unwavering commitment to science and humanity: “Above all, don’t fear difficult moments. The best comes from them.” Rita Levi-Montalcini’s enduring spirit and remarkable achievements continue to light the path for future generations of scientists and thinkers.
