Rita Levi-Montalcini

The neurobiologist who built a secret laboratory in her bedroom during World War II and discovered how the nervous system grows

When Rita Levi-Montalcini won the Nobel Prize in 1986, she was asked what advice she would give to young women in science. Her response was characteristically direct: "Don't fear difficulties, impossibilities, and failures: they are your stepping stones." She knew something about impossibilities—she had spent the darkest years of World War II conducting groundbreaking neuroscience research in a makeshift laboratory hidden in her family's Turin bedroom, using nothing more than sewing needles, watchmaker tools, and chicken embryos from the local market.

Timeline of a Remarkable Life

1909: Born in Turin, Italy, to a Sephardic Jewish family; father initially opposes her pursuing higher education
1930: Enrolls in medical school at University of Turin after convincing her father
1936: Graduates summa cum laude in medicine and surgery, begins research with neurobiologist Giuseppe Levi
1938: Mussolini's racial laws force her out of university; begins clandestine research at home
1940-1943: Operates secret bedroom laboratory during WWII, studying nerve growth in chicken embryos
1944-1945: Works as a doctor treating war refugees and partisans in Florence
1947: Accepts invitation from Viktor Hamburger to Washington University in St. Louis for "a few months"
1952: Discovers Nerve Growth Factor (NGF) while working with mouse tumors
1958: Isolates and purifies NGF with biochemist Stanley Cohen
1961: Becomes full professor at Washington University
1969: Returns to Italy to establish research unit at National Research Council in Rome
1986: Wins Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (shared with Stanley Cohen) for NGF discovery
2001: Appointed Senator for Life in Italian Senate at age 92
2012: Dies in Rome at age 103, having worked almost until the end

The Scientist Who Refused to Stop

Rita Levi-Montalcini's story begins with an act of rebellion that would define her entire life. In 1930s Italy, her father believed higher education would interfere with a woman's duties as wife and mother. But at age 20, watching a family friend die of stomach cancer, Rita realized she wanted to become a doctor. She convinced her father to let her take the university entrance exam—with just eight months to prepare for eight years of missed classical education. She not only passed but excelled, graduating medical school summa cum laude in 1936.

Her timing couldn't have been worse. Just two years later, Mussolini's racial laws banned Jews from universities and professions. At 29, Rita found herself cut off from the scientific career she'd fought so hard to build. Most people would have given up. Rita Levi-Montalcini built a laboratory in her bedroom.

Using her mother's sewing needles as surgical instruments and a watchmaker's forceps, she began studying how nerve cells develop in chicken embryos. The work was inspired by a 1934 paper by Viktor Hamburger that she'd read years earlier. Working by the light of her bedroom window, she made meticulous observations of how nerve fibers grew and connected. When Allied bombing forced her family to flee Turin, she packed up her makeshift lab and continued the research in a country cottage. Even when they had to move to Florence and she spent her days treating war refugees, she kept her embryo studies going at night.

This wasn't just scientific dedication—it was an act of resistance. "The deteriorating political situation and the racial laws," she later wrote, "convinced me that I should build a small laboratory and take up again the interrupted research." In the face of systematic dehumanization, she insisted on her right to think, to discover, to contribute to human knowledge.

The bedroom laboratory years produced insights that would later prove crucial to her Nobel Prize-winning work. She observed that nerve cells seemed to die in large numbers during normal development—a phenomenon that contradicted prevailing theories about how the nervous system formed. She also noticed that nerve fibers appeared to be guided by some unknown signal from their target tissues. These observations, made with the most primitive equipment imaginable, laid the groundwork for her later discovery of Nerve Growth Factor.

When the war ended, Rita received an unexpected letter from Viktor Hamburger at Washington University in St. Louis. He had read about her wartime research and invited her to come work with him—for what she thought would be a few months. She ended up staying for thirty years.

The collaboration with Hamburger led to her greatest scientific triumph. In the early 1950s, they were studying a mouse tumor that seemed to stimulate nerve growth in nearby tissues. Rita had a hunch that the tumor was producing some kind of chemical signal. To test this, she performed a now-famous experiment: she placed tumor tissue next to a chicken embryo and watched as nerve fibers grew toward it "like rivulets of water flowing toward a valley."

But the real breakthrough came when she decided to culture the tumor cells in a laboratory dish with nerve tissue. Working late into the night (as she often did), she watched through the microscope as nerve fibers began sprouting and growing in a distinctive halo pattern around the tumor cells. "The tumor was releasing a nerve growth-promoting agent," she realized. She had discovered what would become known as Nerve Growth Factor—the first identified member of a family of proteins that guide the development of the nervous system.

The discovery of NGF revolutionized neuroscience. It showed that the nervous system doesn't develop through some predetermined genetic program, but through a complex dance of chemical signals between cells. NGF and related factors determine which nerve cells live or die, where they send their connections, and how strong those connections become. This insight opened entirely new fields of research into neurodevelopment, neurodegeneration, and potential treatments for conditions like Alzheimer's disease.

Rita's approach to science was as distinctive as her discoveries. She worked with an intensity that bordered on obsession, often staying in the lab until 2 or 3 AM. She dressed elegantly even for laboratory work, believing that how you presented yourself affected how seriously your ideas were taken. She was known for her precise, almost surgical way of speaking—every word chosen carefully, every sentence constructed with the same attention to detail she brought to her experiments.

The Nobel Prize in 1986 brought Rita international recognition, but also a platform she used to advocate for science education and women's rights. She was particularly passionate about supporting young women scientists, establishing a foundation that provided fellowships for African women pursuing scientific careers. "The moment you stop working," she often said, "you start dying."

Her Nobel acceptance speech revealed both her scientific rigor and her philosophical depth. She spoke about NGF not just as a biological discovery, but as a metaphor for human potential: "The nerve growth factor is a molecule that can stimulate the growth and differentiation of nerve cells. In the same way, I believe that each of us has within ourselves a growth factor that can help us overcome difficulties and achieve our goals."

Rita continued working well into her 90s, maintaining an office at the European Brain Research Institute in Rome and publishing scientific papers past age 100. She approached aging with the same analytical curiosity she brought to nerve cells, once observing: "At 100, I have a mind that is superior—thanks to experience—than when I was 20."

Her longevity allowed her to witness the full flowering of the field she had helped create. NGF research led to new understanding of how the brain develops, how it repairs itself after injury, and how neurodegenerative diseases progress. The growth factor family she discovered now includes dozens of proteins that regulate everything from memory formation to pain sensation.

In Her Own Words

On persistence through adversity: "Above all, don't fear difficult moments. The best comes from them." (From her autobiography, reflecting on the wartime years that shaped her approach to obstacles)

On her wartime bedroom laboratory: "The deteriorating political situation and the racial laws convinced me that I should build a small laboratory and take up again the interrupted research... In this way I passed the darkest period of my life." (Describing how scientific work became both refuge and resistance during WWII)

On the moment of discovering NGF: "The tumor was releasing a nerve growth-promoting agent... I watched the nerve fibers growing like rivulets of water flowing toward a valley." (Recalling the late-night experiment that changed neuroscience)

On aging and continuing to work: "At 100, I have a mind that is superior—thanks to experience—than when I was 20. The body may be more fragile, but the mind can be stronger." (Interview at age 100, still actively researching)

On her life philosophy: "The moment you stop working, you start dying. I'll work until the last day of my life." (A principle she lived by, publishing research past age 100)

Legacy of Determination

Rita Levi-Montalcini's story teaches us that breakthrough discoveries often come not from perfect conditions, but from refusing to accept limitations. Her bedroom laboratory during World War II wasn't just a makeshift workspace—it was a declaration that the human drive to understand and create cannot be legislated away. Her discovery of Nerve Growth Factor emerged from this same refusal to accept boundaries, whether imposed by war, discrimination, or scientific convention.

Her approach to science—meticulous, persistent, and deeply curious—reminds us that major discoveries often require both technical skill and philosophical courage. She didn't just study how nerve cells grow; she embodied the principle that growth requires both nurturing conditions and the determination to push beyond apparent limits. Her century-long life demonstrated that the same factors that promote nerve growth—persistence, adaptation, and response to signals from the environment—can guide human achievement as well.

Perhaps most importantly, Rita Levi-Montalcini showed that scientific discovery is ultimately an act of hope. Even in humanity's darkest hours, she continued to seek understanding, to build knowledge, to prepare for a future she couldn't guarantee would come. Her Nobel Prize recognized not just a crucial biological discovery, but a testament to the power of human curiosity to transcend any circumstance.