Rita Levi-Montalcini ( 22 April 1909 – 30 December 2012) was an Italian Nobel Laureate honored for her work in neurobiology. She was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly with colleague Stanley Cohen for the discovery of nerve growth factor (NGF).From 2001 until her death, she also served in the Italian Senate as a Senator for Life.
Rita Levi-Montalcini had been the oldest living Nobel laureate and was the first ever to reach a 100th birthday.On 22 April 2009, she was feted with a 100th birthday party at Rome's city hall.
Born on 22 April 1909 at Turin to a wealthy Italian Jewish family,she and her twin sister Paola were the youngest of four children. Her parents were Adele Montalcini, a painter, and Adamo Levi, an electrical engineer and mathematician.
In her teenage years, she considered becoming a writer and admired Swedish writer Selma Lagerlöf.Adamo discouraged his children from attending college as he feared it would disrupt their lives as wives and mothers but he eventually supported Levi-Montalcini's aspirations to become a doctor anyway.Levi-Montalcini decided to attend University of Turin Medical School after seeing a close family friend die of stomach cancer.While attending, she was taught by neurohistologist Giuseppe Levi who introduced her to the developing nervous system.After graduating with an M.D. in 1936, she went to work as Giuseppe Levi's assistant, but her academic career was cut short by Benito Mussolini's 1938 Manifesto of Race and the subsequent introduction oflaws barring Jews from academic and professional careers.
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