Empowering. “If I had not been discriminated against or had not suffered prosecution, I would never have received the Nobel Prize.”
In honor of #WomeninScienceDay this month, here’s my profile of the late Dr. Rita Levi-Montalcini, a giant among #WomeninScience — #WomentoFollow thread (10th edition).
Rose Horowitz on Twitter
By Rose Horowitz @RoseHorowitz31 Feb 11
#girlsaresmart The late Rita Levi-Montalcini is a giant among #WomeninScience. She’s one of 51 women awarded the @NobelPrize; 853 men have been #NobelLaureates.
We must change the perception that by 6 years old, girls say boys are “really, really smart,” not GIRLS, as reported in a recent article in Science.
Italian neurologist Dr. Levi-Montalcini’s work led to strides in the study of neural development. “I don’t use these words easily, but her work revolutionized the study of neural development, from how we think about it to how we intervene,” said Dr. Gerald D. Fishbach, a neuroscientist and professor emeritus at Columbia in a The New York Times obitituary.
Stanley Cohen and Dr. Levi-Montalcini’s work at Washington University in St. Louis led to possible treatments for conditions, such as #Alzheimer’s and #cancer. The American biochemist and Dr. Levi-Montalcini received the 1986 Nobel Prize for the discovery of nerve growth factor, which showed how the growth of a cell is regulated.
Born in Turin, Italy in 1909, Levi-Montalcini wanted to attend university despite her father’s position that this would interfere with her expected roles as a wife and mother. She put it this way on the Nobel Prize website: “Both parents were highly cultured and instilled in us their high appreciation of intellectual pursuit. It was, however, a typical Victorian style of life, all decisions being taken by the head of the family, the husband and father.”
Nonetheless, Dr. Levi-Montalcini persisted. She attended the University of Turin. But she lost her teaching position in the university’s anatomy department after a 1938 law was passed by Italy’s Fascist regime that barred Jews from professional and intellectual careers.
Once again, Dr. Levi-Montalcini persevered. She set up a home laboratory to study the growth of nerve fibers in chicken embryos, inspired by an article about nerve development in chicken embryos by American scientist Viktor Hamburger.
In 1943, when Germany invaded Italy, Dr. Levi-Montalcini abandoned the Piedmonte countryside and fled to Florence, where the family lived underground until the end of the World World II. She worked as a medical doctor for a year after the war, helping refugees to recover.
Her life changed when she accepted an invitation from Viktor Hamburger to to visit Washington University in St. Louis. Dr. Levi-Montalcini had intended to stay in America for 10 to 12 months. Instead, she stayed for 30 years teaching at Washington University and doing vital work with Stanley Cohen that led to the discovery of the nerve growth factor (NGF), a protein that promotes nerve growth.
For years, Dr. Levi-Montalcini split her time between Rome and St. Louis. She helped established the Institute of Cell Biology in Rome in 1962 and served as its first director. She retired from Washington University in 1977.
Italy honored her in 2001 by making her a senator for life.
Dr. Levi-Montalcini never married nor had children. “I never had any hesitation or regrets in this sense. My life has been enriched by excellent human relations, work and interests. I have never felt lonely,” she said in a 2006 interview.
She died in Rome on December 30, 2012 at the age of 103.
In her autobiography, “In Praise of Imperfection: My Life and Work,” published in 1988, she wrote: “it is imperfection-not perfection-that is the end result of the program written into that formidably complex engine that is the human brain.”
The importance of female role models? Less than 30% of the world’s researchers are women, according to UNESCO.
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Originally published at twitter.com on February 11, 2019.
