Dr. Rita Levi-Montalcini, a 70-year-old Italian Jewish biologist, received the Saint Vincent Prize for Medicine, generally considered second in worldwide prestige after the Nobel Prize for which she is also a candidate.
She discovered a protein called the NGF (nerve growth factor) which provokes the growth and differentiation of nerve cells, considered of primary importance for cancer research along with the discovery she co-authored, in 1960, of an antibody that irreversibly destroys the neurons of the sympathetic nervous system.
Levi-Montalcini directs the laboratory of cellular biology of the National Council for Research in Rome, Italy’s most important research center, has a Chair in Neurobiology at Washington University in St. Louis and is a member of several academies.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
