Biography
Born in Turin, Italy on April 22, 1909. In her early life she lived in a family with diverse interests her mother was a painter, her father an electrical engineer and a gifted mathematician, and her brother was an architect and a professor at the University of Turin. Throughout her childhood Rita was discouraged from going to college because her father wanted her to learn how to cook and clean so she could be a housewife. Despite this she graduated in 1936 from the University of Turin medical school. Once she graduated she worked at the University of Turin where she learned a technique for silver staining nerve cells that made the cells clearly visible under a microscope.
In 1938 laws were passed outlawing people with Jewish heritage to work in medicine or at universities. These laws made it nearly impossible for Rita to work on her experiments publically so she soon learned how to make surgical instruments from sewing needles and set up a lab in her bedroom. She used the silver staining technique she learned while working at the university to watch the nerve growth of a chicken embryo. Dr. Viktor Hamburger invited her to Washington University after he read the papers she had published. In his lab she witnessed a mouse tumor that had stimulated nerve growth after being grafted onto a chicken embryo. This inspired her to adapt the experiment, placing the tumor where it would share the blood supply of the chicken embryo and saw the same growth increase. She repeated the experiment with nerve tissue she had cultivated in brazil and got the same results. Montalcini then while working with Stanley Cohen isolated the NGF (nerve growth factor) a protein that promotes nerve growth in the nearby cells. At the time her research was underappreciated, until it began to be used as a possible treatment for alzheimer's disease, infertility, and cancer. In 1962 Rita helped to establish the Institute of Cell Biology located in Rome, Italy. In 1992 she established an education foundation, then set up the European Brain Reasearch Institute in 2002. She continued to conduct her research near the end of her life. She died at the age of 103 in her home in Rome.
In 1938 laws were passed outlawing people with Jewish heritage to work in medicine or at universities. These laws made it nearly impossible for Rita to work on her experiments publically so she soon learned how to make surgical instruments from sewing needles and set up a lab in her bedroom. She used the silver staining technique she learned while working at the university to watch the nerve growth of a chicken embryo. Dr. Viktor Hamburger invited her to Washington University after he read the papers she had published. In his lab she witnessed a mouse tumor that had stimulated nerve growth after being grafted onto a chicken embryo. This inspired her to adapt the experiment, placing the tumor where it would share the blood supply of the chicken embryo and saw the same growth increase. She repeated the experiment with nerve tissue she had cultivated in brazil and got the same results. Montalcini then while working with Stanley Cohen isolated the NGF (nerve growth factor) a protein that promotes nerve growth in the nearby cells. At the time her research was underappreciated, until it began to be used as a possible treatment for alzheimer's disease, infertility, and cancer. In 1962 Rita helped to establish the Institute of Cell Biology located in Rome, Italy. In 1992 she established an education foundation, then set up the European Brain Reasearch Institute in 2002. She continued to conduct her research near the end of her life. She died at the age of 103 in her home in Rome.