Rita Levi-Montalcini: unstoppable

Rita Levi-Montalcini won the 1986 Nobel Prize in physiology/medicine for her research into neurology (we’re talking a brain about brains here!  Sorry, couldn’t help myself).  To skip the fancy tech-talk, she discovered chemicals called “cellular growth factors” that regulate the growth of various types of cells.  In particular, she discovered a substance that makes nerve cells grow.  Scientists today use her research to help people with spinal cord injuries and other neurological problems. 

Born in Italy in 1909, Rita grew up in an amazing family.  Her mother was a painter and her father an engineer, and Rita described her family as being full of love and devotion and cultural awareness.  However, her father also felt that “education towards a career” would spoil his daughter for future marital happiness, so he restricted her education to only those topics he deemed appropriate (he was really all heart, wasn’t he?).  Rita spent her teen years learning everything she could on her own, and when she turned twenty her determination finally convinced her father.  She spent an intense 8 months learning several languages, finishing a formal high school degree, and preparing for medical school.

She began her medical studies at the University of Turin in histology and never looked back (she wasn’t interested in marital happiness anyway).  She graduated in 1936 and began a special program in neurology/physiology.  This is where things get ugly.  Does “1936” ring any historical bells for you?  That was the year Mussolini started passing Purity Laws modeled on those of his good friend Adolph.  One such law stated that academic or research positions could not be held by Jews, and Rita had to flee the university before she could be arrested.

She hid with friends in Belgium for a time, but when the Germans invaded in 1940 she fled back to her parent’s home in Italy .  She built a secret lab in her bedroom, put a lock on the door, and continued her research hidden away from the eyes of the government and her parents.  However, bombing of the city during the war forced her to move, and she rebuilt her lab in the basement of a small country cottage.  A year later, advancing German troops forced her to abandon her second secret lab and join the “academic underground” in Florence .

After Florence was liberated, Dr. Rita was placed in charge of a refugee camp filled with people fleeing the still occupied Northern regions of Italy .  After the war, Rita calmly picked up her research and continued to amaze her associates with her determination to finish what she began.  Traveling between labs in St. Louis and Rome , Rita finished her project and won the Nobel prize, bringing hope to millions of people who suffer from neurological disorders, and proving yet again that nothing can stop a grrl who knows what she wants.  Not her family, not social pressure, not even a World War.  You go grrl!

 

Tracy Madison  grrl-e-grrl.com contributor