Italian Nobel scientist is going strong at 100

Levi-Montalcini photo by Giuseppe Nicoloro/flickr

Rita Levi-Montalcini celebrated her 100th birthday this week. The Nobel Prize-winning Italian scientist said she should thank Mussolini for turning what could have been a life of sour grapes into fine wine.

At 100, Levi-Montalcini said her mind is sharper now than it was when she was 20.

Her experiments led to identification of the growth factor of neuronal cells (nerve growth factor, also known as NGF) for which she and American Stanley Cohen shared the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1986, when Levi-Montalcini was 77.

Levi-Montalcini is a senator for life in Italy and a member of the most prestigious scientific academies, including the  l'Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, l'Accademia Pontificia, l'Accademia delle Scienze, the National Academy of Sciences in the United States and the Royal Society. Speaking at a celebration of her 100th birthday hosted by the European Brain Research Institute, a nonprofit which she founded, she said:

"At 100, I have a mind that is superior — thanks to experience — than when I was 20."

Her experiences could have been daunting. Born in Turin, she told the celebrants how she was forced to quit her university job in the 1930s by the Benito Mussolini regime‘s anti-Jewish laws that barred non-Aryan Italian citizens from academic and professional careers. She said she did research in an improvised laboratory in her bedroom until the war ended.

"I should thank Mussolini for having declared me to be of an inferior race. This led me to the joy of working, not any more, unfortunately, in university institutes but in a bedroom," the scientist said.

She stressed:

"Above all, don't fear difficult moments. The best comes from them."

Sandy Sand is a resident of Los Angeles, a free lance writer and former editor of the Tolucan in beautiful downtown Burbank. She is also a contributor to the Los Angeles Daily News, Digital Journal and numerous others.