Rita Levi-Montalcini — An Overlooked Woman Of Science Rita Levi-Montalcini - An Overlooked Woman Of Science
April 27, 2020 at 9:03 p.m.
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I may have been remiss in overlooking women in my research. (Although I did recognize Drs. Helen Taussig and Francis Kelsey for preventing the market release of thalidomide, a notorious teratrogenic drug sold worldwide.)
One more example is Rita Levi-Montalcini. She shared the Nobel Prize for medicine or physiology with Dr. Stanley Cohen in 1986. Dr. Montalcini helped to identify the protein that controls the growth of cells in the nervous system and showed that it is necessary for normal nerve growth and maintenance. It was a seminal accomplishment that influenced basic research on a host of diseases.
She had a long, extraordinary and productive life and while in Italy, as a Jew, suffered from the atrocities that occurred after Nazi Germany invaded that country in 1943. Even prior to that time Mussolini, the Italian dictator, had issued an edict preventing Jews from holding academic positions. While in hiding, Levi-Montalcini set up a lab in her small living quarters where she examined chicken eggs under a microscope.
She wrote that during that time she would ride trains and read scientific papers while admiring the countryside. On one of those rides, she read a paper by a famous embryologist, Viktor Hamburger, that changed her life. She went back to her makeshift lab in her bedroom and began experiments that would lead to her astounding discovery. Levi-Montalcini lived in hiding until the end of the war.
In 1944, after the Allied liberation of Italy was underway, she provided medical services for the American army in a camp for Italian refugees. In 1945, she returned to Turin and became a researcher at the University of Turin.
Earlier Life
Levi-Montalcini was born on April 22, 1909, in Turin, northwestern Italy. She and her twin sister Paola were the youngest of four children. Her mother was an artist, and her father an electrical engineer. Levi-Montalcini received her M.D. degree from the University of Turin in 1936, and in 1940, a degree for specialization in neurology and psychiatry from the same institution.
From 1936 to 1938, she was an assistant at the Neurology Clinic at the Turin School of Medicine, and in 1938, spent a year as a researcher at the Neurology Institute in Brussels, Belgium.
Postwar Years
In 1947, Levi-Montalcini went to Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., to work with Dr. Hamburger, who was studying the growth of nerve tissue in chick embryos. In 1948, she and Hamburger identified nerve growth factor, the first of many cell-growth factors discovered in the bodies of animals.
In 1953, American biologist Stanley Cohen joined her at Washington University, and they continued work on nerve growth factor. Cohen purified the factor, determined its chemical nature, and produced nerve growth factor antibodies.
In 1961, Levi-Montalcini, who had dual Italian and American citizenship, began commuting between the U.S. and Italy. From 1968 to 1978, she was the director of the Institute of Cell Biology, of the Italian National Council of Research in Rome, and retained her faculty status at Washington University until 1977, when she became professor emeritus. After 1978, she continued to be a full-time researcher at the institute in Rome.
She later became a senator in Italy and died there at the age of 103.
Nerve Growth Factors
Levi-Montalcini’s work on chick embryos included an experiment grafting mouse tumors onto the embryonic tissue. She found that both sympathetic and sensory fibers penetrated the tumor and reached tissues they were not expected to enter. She concluded that a soluble, diffusible agent was released from the tumor and stimulated the growth of nerve cells, subsequently identified as nerve growth factor (NGF).
Stanley Cohen who collaborated with Levi-Montalcini was able to isolate the active agent, a protein. From his efforts he also discovered epidermic growth factor (EGF) and its metabolic effects on cell cultures. Since the initial discoveries of NGF and EGF, thousands of related papers and numerous reviews have been published revealing many aspects of growth regulation.
The receptors of many other growth factors and hormones have been found. At least four EGF related receptors have been detected and one of them is overexpressed in some human breast tumors. Research is ongoing in treating a number of diseases.
Final Thoughts
Anyone interested in learning more about this remarkable woman, can read her autobiography, In Praise of Imperfection: My Life and Work, Basic Books, New York, 1988.
Max Sherman is a medical writer and pharmacist retired from the medical device industry. He has taught college courses on regulatory and compliance issues at Ivy Tech, Grace College and Butler University. Sherman has an unquenchable thirst for knowledge on all levels. Eclectic Science, the title of his column, touches on famed doctors and scientists, human senses, aging, various diseases, and little-known facts about many species, including their contributions to scientific research. He can be reached by email at [email protected].
I may have been remiss in overlooking women in my research. (Although I did recognize Drs. Helen Taussig and Francis Kelsey for preventing the market release of thalidomide, a notorious teratrogenic drug sold worldwide.)
One more example is Rita Levi-Montalcini. She shared the Nobel Prize for medicine or physiology with Dr. Stanley Cohen in 1986. Dr. Montalcini helped to identify the protein that controls the growth of cells in the nervous system and showed that it is necessary for normal nerve growth and maintenance. It was a seminal accomplishment that influenced basic research on a host of diseases.
She had a long, extraordinary and productive life and while in Italy, as a Jew, suffered from the atrocities that occurred after Nazi Germany invaded that country in 1943. Even prior to that time Mussolini, the Italian dictator, had issued an edict preventing Jews from holding academic positions. While in hiding, Levi-Montalcini set up a lab in her small living quarters where she examined chicken eggs under a microscope.
She wrote that during that time she would ride trains and read scientific papers while admiring the countryside. On one of those rides, she read a paper by a famous embryologist, Viktor Hamburger, that changed her life. She went back to her makeshift lab in her bedroom and began experiments that would lead to her astounding discovery. Levi-Montalcini lived in hiding until the end of the war.
In 1944, after the Allied liberation of Italy was underway, she provided medical services for the American army in a camp for Italian refugees. In 1945, she returned to Turin and became a researcher at the University of Turin.
Earlier Life
Levi-Montalcini was born on April 22, 1909, in Turin, northwestern Italy. She and her twin sister Paola were the youngest of four children. Her mother was an artist, and her father an electrical engineer. Levi-Montalcini received her M.D. degree from the University of Turin in 1936, and in 1940, a degree for specialization in neurology and psychiatry from the same institution.
From 1936 to 1938, she was an assistant at the Neurology Clinic at the Turin School of Medicine, and in 1938, spent a year as a researcher at the Neurology Institute in Brussels, Belgium.
Postwar Years
In 1947, Levi-Montalcini went to Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., to work with Dr. Hamburger, who was studying the growth of nerve tissue in chick embryos. In 1948, she and Hamburger identified nerve growth factor, the first of many cell-growth factors discovered in the bodies of animals.
In 1953, American biologist Stanley Cohen joined her at Washington University, and they continued work on nerve growth factor. Cohen purified the factor, determined its chemical nature, and produced nerve growth factor antibodies.
In 1961, Levi-Montalcini, who had dual Italian and American citizenship, began commuting between the U.S. and Italy. From 1968 to 1978, she was the director of the Institute of Cell Biology, of the Italian National Council of Research in Rome, and retained her faculty status at Washington University until 1977, when she became professor emeritus. After 1978, she continued to be a full-time researcher at the institute in Rome.
She later became a senator in Italy and died there at the age of 103.
Nerve Growth Factors
Levi-Montalcini’s work on chick embryos included an experiment grafting mouse tumors onto the embryonic tissue. She found that both sympathetic and sensory fibers penetrated the tumor and reached tissues they were not expected to enter. She concluded that a soluble, diffusible agent was released from the tumor and stimulated the growth of nerve cells, subsequently identified as nerve growth factor (NGF).
Stanley Cohen who collaborated with Levi-Montalcini was able to isolate the active agent, a protein. From his efforts he also discovered epidermic growth factor (EGF) and its metabolic effects on cell cultures. Since the initial discoveries of NGF and EGF, thousands of related papers and numerous reviews have been published revealing many aspects of growth regulation.
The receptors of many other growth factors and hormones have been found. At least four EGF related receptors have been detected and one of them is overexpressed in some human breast tumors. Research is ongoing in treating a number of diseases.
Final Thoughts
Anyone interested in learning more about this remarkable woman, can read her autobiography, In Praise of Imperfection: My Life and Work, Basic Books, New York, 1988.
Max Sherman is a medical writer and pharmacist retired from the medical device industry. He has taught college courses on regulatory and compliance issues at Ivy Tech, Grace College and Butler University. Sherman has an unquenchable thirst for knowledge on all levels. Eclectic Science, the title of his column, touches on famed doctors and scientists, human senses, aging, various diseases, and little-known facts about many species, including their contributions to scientific research. He can be reached by email at [email protected].
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