You probably know of many Nobel prize winners, but have you heard of Rita Levi-Montalcini? While many women have contributed significantly to the development of neuroscience, their stories remain untold. One such example is Rita Levi-Montalcini, who was almost prevented from discovering nerve growth factor and contributing to the treatment of cancer, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and chronic pain by her environment and historical context.
Levi-Montalcini was an Italian Jewish neurophysiologist who is renowned for her discovery of nerve growth factors, which earned her the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology in 1986. Along the path to her success, she faced numerous personal and professional challenges, ranging from sexism to anti-Semitism. However, she managed to overcome them, adding to the history of female scientists with her crucial research in world science. Her experiences led her to instruct, “Above all, don't fear difficult moments. The best comes from them" [1].
Levi-Montalcini was born on April 22, 1909, in Turin, Italy, to a patriarchal Italian Jewish family. Her father was an electrical engineer and mathematician, while her mother was a painter. Together with her twin sister, Levi-Montalcini was the youngest of four children. Although her family was loving, her father firmly believed that women should not pursue higher education and careers because they would interfere with women’s roles as wives and mothers [2]. However, Levi-Montalcini argued with her father and fought for her rights. Her passion for science finally touched him, and she attended the Turin University Medical School, where women were rarely admitted. She graduated from the university with a summa cum laude M.D. in medicine and surgery in 1936 and enrolled in a three-year specialization in neurology and psychiatry.
Levi-Montalcini faced discrimination in the neuroscience field not only because of her gender but also because of her Jewish background. In 1838, Mussolini's Manifesto of Race triggered the persecution of Jews, prohibiting them from pursuing academic and professional careers. As a result, Levi-Montalcini had to leave her university; however, despite this obstacle, she set up a makeshift laboratory in her cramped bedroom to study the growth of nerve fibers in chicken embryos, since eggs were the most accessible materials. [1] Soon World War II broke out, which brought greater hardship to Levi-Montalcini’s research.
During the German occupation of Italy from 1943 to 1945, Levi-Montalcini’s family was forced to move to a country cottage to escape the massive bombings in Turin. Because food was deficient at that time, she had to cycle around the village to buy eggs for her experiments. As the war approached closer and closer, her family ended up hiding underground in Florence. However, even in the face of war, Levi-Montalcini rebuilt her mini-laboratory every time she moved. Squeezed into the underground space, she set up her laboratory in a corner of her family’s shared living space and continued her research indefatigably in the dark and cold room. She never gave up her pursuit of science, even under life-threatening situations. She saved all the resources for her experiments, and often, her only source of sustenance were the eggs that she had experimented on. As she later revealed in an interview, “Food was very scarce in those days, so I had to eat the chicken embryos. They were not too fresh, because I needed to experiment on them for about four days, but they were food” [3].
As a result of her determination, Levi-Montalcini managed to publish papers of her work, and her determination and passion for science paved the way for her future success.
At the end of World War II, Levi-Montalcini volunteered as a doctor at the Allied camps and returned to Turin. She accepted an invitation to collaborate with Viktor Hamburger, who was also studying the growth of nerve tissue in chick embryos at Washington University, Missouri. She spent thirty years researching alongside Hamburger, and there, she discovered nerve growth factor (NGF), a protein that causes developing cells to grow by stimulating surrounding nerve tissue. Building on this research, she worked with Stanley Cohen to purify NGF, and, in 1971, they published the elusive protein's structure. They discovered that NGF plays a crucial role in the understanding of the immune system, cell growth, cancers, and diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Later, Levi-Montalcini identified the importance of mast cells in human pathology, and her work on palmitoylethanolamide helped lay the foundation for its use as a drug treatment for chronic pain and neuroinflammation [4].
As a result of her efforts, she was the third woman to win the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology in 1986 with Stanley Cohen for the discovery of NGF, decades after her groundbreaking work in Italy and the United States. She utilized the reward to promote education for women and continued to focus on scientific research for the rest of her life. In addition to establishing the Rita Levi-Montalcini Onlus Foundation, which focused on educating young African women, she also founded the European Brain Research Institute and served as its President.
On April 22, 2009, she became the first Nobel laureate to reach the age of 100, before passing away on December 30th, 2012 in Rome, Italy. At the time of her death, she was the oldest living Nobel laureate. Looking back on her life, Levi-Montalcini shared, "One might think that the war, that being ousted from my University, would have been very bad luck for me. But I say, you never know what is good, what is bad in life. I mean, in my case, it was my good chance" [5].
Although history has often overlooked female scientists like Levi-Montalcini, her life and achievements remain an inspiration to all. As fellow biologist and Nobel laureate Aaron Ciechanover put it, she “carved her way during days when women were hardly seen in universities, in Fascist Italy, to peaks of science and humanity, where the air is thin and only a few, much stronger than her, can survive” [6].
[1] Elana Hirsch, “The Life and Work of Dr. Rita Levi-Montalcini,” Women in Neuroscience, 2015.
[2] “Rita Levi-Montalcini – Biographical,” The Nobel Prize, 1987, <https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1986/levi-montalcini/biographical/>.
[3] Uli Schmetzer, “WW II MADE NOBEL WINNER EAT HER WORKS,” The Chicago Tribune, October 14, 1986, https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1986-10-14-8603170374-story.html.
[4] “Professor Rita Levi-Montalcini: Biographical Summary,” What is Biotechnology?, www.whatisbiotechnology.org/index.php/people/summary/Levi-Montalcini.
[5] Melanie Fine, “Turning Darkness Into Light: The Life And Legacy Of Rita Levi-Montalcini,” Forbes Magazine, April 23, 2019, www.forbes.com/sites/melaniefine/2019/04/23/turning-darkness-into-light-the-life-and-legacy-of-rita-levi-montalcini/#3356605e7fb4.
[6] Gerry Melino, “Rita Levi-Montalcini 1909–2012,” Cell, January 31, 2013, https://www.cell.com/fulltext/S0092-8674(13)00074-3.
