12 IMMIGRANTS WHO MADE by Meg Marquardt AMERICAN MEDICINE GREAT STORY LIBRARY
1 Rita Levi-Montalcini Learns How Nerves Grow Nothing could keep Rita Levi Montalcini from doing science Not even World War II She was born in Turin Italy on April 22 1909 In 4 1936 she graduated from medical school By that time life in Europe was difficult for some people Especially for Jews The Levi Montalcini family was Jewish But hardship didn’t stop her She built laboratories in her home Even when Italy was being bombed she kept doing research on nerve cells Nerves are long fibers that run through the whole body They send signals back to the brain These signals tell the brain if something is hot or cold soft or hard Nerves also sense pain World War II ended in 1945 After the war Levi-Montalcini continued her research In 1947 she was invited to work at Washington University in St Louis Missouri She studied there and did nerve growth research for 30 years Not much was known about how nerves grow Levi-Montalcini’s
big breakthrough came when she attached a tumor to a chicken embryo She was working with another researcher named Stanley Cohen Together they determined that a protein from the tumor made nerves grow They had discovered nerve growth factor NGF Levi-Montalcini and Cohen won the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine Their discovery has helped doctors understand and treat diseases like Alzheimer’s and cancer In 1987 Levi-Montalcini won the National Medal of Science This is the United States highest scientific honor In 2009 Levi-Montalcini was the first Nobel laureate to reach the age of 100 She lived to be 103 268 Miles per hour 431 3 km h that signals move along nerves Rita Levi-Montalcini came to the United States in 1947 Her research led to the discovery of nerve growth factor She won a Nobel Prize in 1986 5
