SIUE Honors Rita Levi-Montalcini for International Women’s Day
Last Saturday SIUE faculty and students gathered for a special celebration of the life of Rita Levi-Montalcini. Originally Montalcini was scheduled to give a special guest presentation on the date, however she passed away last December at the age of 103.
A noted neural scientist, Montalcini won the Nobel prize for medicine in 1986 with Stanley Cohen for the discovery of nerve growth factor. Montalcini began her career under fascism in Italy, where as a Jewish woman she had to work from her home laboratory with the limited materials she could scrape together. In 1946 she accepted an invitation to Washington University where she worked for the next thirty years. She also served as director for the Research Center of Neurobiology as well as the Laboratory of Cellular Biology, and founded the European Brain Research Institue in 2002.
The memorial event included readings from her biographer Susan Tyler Hitchcock, as well as reading from SIUE faculty, and students. The presentation also included a video message from Montalcini.
Filed Under: Biological Sciences • General CAS Stories • Happenings • Women's Studies
