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Published online 1 April 2009 | Nature 458, 564-567 (2009) | doi:10.1038/458564a
News Feature
Neuroscience: One hundred years of Rita
From a home lab to the Italian Senate, by way of nerve growth factor — Rita Levi-Montalcini is a scientist like no other. Alison Abbott meets the first Nobel prizewinner set to reach her hundredth birthday.
Tiny though she is, Rita Levi-Montalcini tends to command attention. And on the morning of 18 November 2006, she had the attention of the entire Italian government.
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Rome, April 22 2009 ??My lessons to 80 students not only do not tire me but they amuse me. After so many years I may say that I have learnt how to lecture and I feel relaxed and calm? Is a matter of rhythm, as when you rise a horse. I have finally found my rhythm?.? (1) This are the words which Rita wrote her sister in 1968 when she was Professor at the Washington University in St. Louis and taught Neurology to the students of the School of Medicine. And she never lost her rhythm. With students and young researchers Rita has maintained a great generosity and an intense activity in promoting knowledge. A fact well known to the younger generation which, during the years, have worked and still work with her side by side in the lab. The University of Tor Vergata did not exist in the ?60, but in those years some of us were beginning to take out first steps as researchers in the laboratory of CNR that Rita was directing. On the occasion of her birthday the members of the Faculty of Medicine will hold the Faculty Meeting in the Levi-Montalcini hall. The University will send its wishes to Rita from the hall dedicated to her, which was entitled to her name already several years ago. Giuseppe Novelli, Dean of the ?Tor Vergata? Medical School in Rome and all Colleagues of Faculty (1) from ?Cantico di una vita?, Rita Levi-Montalcini (Ed. Scienza e Idee)