Rita Levi-Montalcini

Neurobiologist, born in Turin, Italy. While a practising physician, she resisted German occupation by hiding in Florence and aiding war refugees (1943–5). She taught at the University of Turin (1945–7), then went to the USA to join Washington University (St Louis) (1947–77). Her studies of nerve growth factor, isolated (1952) from cultures of mouse tumour cells, won her and collaborator Stanley Cohen the 1986 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. She divided her time between the USA and the National Research Council in Rome (1961–89), then moved to Rome permanently to be with her twin sister (1989).

Rita Levi Montalcini (born April 22, 1909 in Turin) is an Italian neurologist who, together with colleague Stanley Cohen, received the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discovery of growth factors.

Born in Turin to a Sephardic Jewish family, together with her twin sister Paola she was the youngest of four children. Her parents were Adamo Levi, an electrical engineer and gifted mathematician, and Adele Montalcini, a talented painter described by Levi Montalcini as "an exquisite human being." Levi Montalcini overcame the objections of her father - who believed that "a professional career would interfere with the duties of a wife and mother" - and enrolled in the Turin medical school in 1930, studying with Giuseppe Levi and graduating in 1936. During World War II, she conducted experiments from a home laboratory, studying the growth of nerve fibers in chicken embryos which laid the groundwork for much of her later research.

In September of 1946 Levi Montalcini accepted an invitation to Washington University in St. Louis, under the supervision of Professor Victor Hamburger.

From 1961 to 1969 she directed the Research Center of Neurobiology of the CNR (Rome), and from 1969 to 1978 the Laboratory of Cellular Biology.

In 1968, she was the tenth woman elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences.

In 1986 Levi Montalcini and collaborator Stanley Cohen received the Nobel Prize in Medicine, as well as the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research.

In 1987, she received National Medal of Science, the highest honor in the scientific world of America.

In 2000, her twin sister Paola Levi Montalcini, a popular artist, died.

In 2001 she was nominated as Senator-for-life by Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi.

In April 28 and 29, 2006, Levi-Montalcini, aged 97, attended the opening assembly of the newly-elected Senate of Italy which brought to the appointment of the new Speaker, and declared her preference for the centre-left candidate Franco Marini.