Italian senator and scientist Rita Levi-Montalcini, the world's oldest living Nobel laureate, turns 100 on Wednesday vowing to remain a political force in her country.
She heads the Levi-Montalcini Foundation, which she established to help African women, and EBRI (European Brain Research Institute) a private non-profit institute with the objective of investigating fundamental questions about the functional organization of the brain and to translate basic brain science into ways to possibly cure the diseases affecting the nervous system.
She heads the Levi-Montalcini Foundation, which she established to help African women, and EBRI (European Brain Research Institute) a private non-profit institute with the objective of investigating fundamental questions about the functional organization of the brain and to translate basic brain science into ways to possibly cure the diseases affecting the nervous system.
Watch a video clip of the 1986 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine, Rita Levi-Montalcini, receiving her Nobel Prize medal and diploma during the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony at the Concert Hall in Stockholm, Sweden, on 10 December 1986.
Montalcini was born in Torino (Turin) on April 22, 1909 and obtained a summa cum laude degree in medicine and surgery from the city university in 1936.
After specialising in neurology and psychiatry she began work as a university assistant but, in 1938, was forced by Fascist religious persecution laws to leave her job.
However, she continued her research from her home.
Her most important work was carried out during her stay at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.
Montalcini received the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1986 with the US scientist Stanley Cohen for their discovery of the Nerve Growth Factor (NGF) in the peripheral nervous system.
She is a member of numerous scientific academies, including the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society of London and was the first woman to be admitted to Italy's Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei in 1976.
In 2001, she revealed she had lost her eyesight but would continue working because her path was illuminated by the ''light of science''.
After specialising in neurology and psychiatry she began work as a university assistant but, in 1938, was forced by Fascist religious persecution laws to leave her job.
However, she continued her research from her home.
Her most important work was carried out during her stay at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.
Montalcini received the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1986 with the US scientist Stanley Cohen for their discovery of the Nerve Growth Factor (NGF) in the peripheral nervous system.
She is a member of numerous scientific academies, including the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society of London and was the first woman to be admitted to Italy's Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei in 1976.
In 2001, she revealed she had lost her eyesight but would continue working because her path was illuminated by the ''light of science''.
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