We could talk about women in science for days, but unfortunately, a lot of groundbreaking female scientists have been left out of our history and science books. We don’t think that’s very cool, we’re changing that narrative one piece and one female scientist at a time. Today, we’re looking at Rita Levi-Montalcini, the Italian neurobiologist who faced sexism and anti-Semitism before winning a Nobel prize. Let’s get started!
(image via: biotechnology)
Rita’s grandmother passed away tragically from stomach cancer, and while this was a horrible event, it’s what led Rita to want to study medicine. When the time came for Rita to attend school her father worried an education would get in the way of her becoming a good wife. Despite his concerns, Rita was one of seven women that attended the University of Turin medical school.
During WWII Rita worked in refugee camps where she watched people die every day during a typhus epidemic. After watching this happen day after day Rita felt she couldn’t properly detach herself from caring for suffering patients, so she decided to leave the medical field, and instead devote her life to conducting research.
(image via: nobel prize)
While attending medical school in 1938 Mussolini’s Manifesto of Race was published which banned Jews from a number of professions and from the university Rita was attending. Determined to stay in school and be successful in her education, Rita set up a makeshift lab in her bedroom where she set up her microscope and performed experiments.
You know how we mentioned earlier that Rita’s Dad was a bit, uhm, old-school? Well despite him wanting nothing more than his daughter to be a perfect wife to someone one day, Rita never married, never became a mother, and never regretted a thing. In fact, she described herself as lacking a maternal sense, an attraction to babies, and said she was unfit for domesticity. In a 2006 interview, Rita said, “My life has been enriched by excellent human relations, work, and interests. I have never felt lonely.”
(image via: la times)
Here is a timeline of just a few of Rita’s biggest accomplishments:
- In 1952 she isolated the growth factor from cancerous cells that caused very rapid nerve cell growth.
- She transferred cancer cells to chick embryos and discovered that the nerve cells grew at an alarming rate and took over other tissues.
- In 1958 she became a Full Professor.
- In 1962 she established the Research Center of Neurobiology of the Italian Research Center and served as its director until 1969.
- In 2002 she founded the European Brain Research Institute.
- In the early 1990s, she was one of the discoverers of the importance of mast cells.
- In 1993 she discovered that palmitoylethanolamide was an important cell modulator of mast cells.
- On August 1, 2006, she was appointed Senator for Life of the Italian Senate.