How a Nobel-Prize Winner Fought Her Family, Nazis, and Bombs to Change our Understanding of Cells Forever

How a Nobel-Prize Winner Fought Her Family, Nazis, and Bombs to Change our Understanding of Cells Forever

Rita Levi-Montalcini survived the Nazis and eventually won a Nobel Prize for her work to understand why certain cells grow so quickly.

When Rita Levi-Montalcini decided to become a scientist, she was determined that nothing would stand in her way. And from the beginning, that determination was put to the test. Before Levi-Montalcini became a Nobel Prize-winning neurobiologist, the first to discover and isolate a crucial chemical called Neural Growth Factor (NGF), she would have to battle both the sexism within her own family as well as the racism and fascism that was slowly engulfing her country

Levi-Montalcini was born to two loving parents in Turin, Italy at the turn of the 20th century. She and her twin sister, Paola, were the youngest of the family's four children, and Levi-Montalcini described her childhood as "filled with love and reciprocal devotion." But while her parents were loving, supportive and "highly cultured," her father refused to let his three daughters engage in any schooling beyond the basics. "He loved us and had a great respect for women," she later explained, "but he believed that a professional career would interfere with the duties of a wife and mother."

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Sarah Watts

Sarah Watts is a health and science writer based in Chicago.

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Dr. Sam Parnia MD, PhD is an Associate Professor of Critical Care Medicine at New York University School of Medicine, where he directs the Critical Care and Resuscitation Research Science Center. One of the world's leading experts on cardiac arrest resuscitation, post-cardiac arrest syndrome, and the scientific study of death, Dr. Parnia’s research focus is on developing new methods to save the lives and brains of patients who undergo cardiac arrest, as well as shedding light on what happens to our brains when we die. He also founded and directed the Human Consciousness Project, which featured an international consortium of scientists and physicians researching the nature of consciousness and its relationship to the brain during cardiac arrest. Dr. Parnia is also the author of two popular books, “What Happens When We Die?” and The New York Times bestseller, “Erasing Death: The Science that is Rewriting the Boundaries between Life and Death.”
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Kira Peikoff

Kira Peikoff was the editor-in-chief of Leaps.org from 2017 to 2021. As a journalist, her work has appeared in The New York Times, Newsweek, Nautilus, Popular Mechanics, The New York Academy of Sciences, and other outlets. She is also the author of four suspense novels that explore controversial issues arising from scientific innovation: Living Proof, No Time to Die, Die Again Tomorrow, and Mother Knows Best. Peikoff holds a B.A. in Journalism from New York University and an M.S. in Bioethics from Columbia University. She lives in New Jersey with her husband and two young sons. Follow her on Twitter @KiraPeikoff.