L'Italo-Americano

L'Italo-Americano THURSDAY, JULY 23, 2020 www.italoamericano.org 6 NEWS & FEATURES TOP STORIES PEOPLE EVENTS covery of a drug, but it is e v e n m o r e i m p o r t a n t f o r understanding the true role of NGF in our body. She said she did not understand, at the time of her discovery, the importance and the multiple implications NGF has in reg- ulating our life. In her last years, she confided to me about a theory she hoped to prove true before departing this life. I preserve it and wait to see it confirmed by one of the many laboratories working in the wake of her discovery. Rita is the only Italian w o m a n t o r e c e i v e t h e N o b e l P r i z e f o r Medicine. In any case so few women in the world are Nobel Laureates in Science. Is sexism still a problem for the scientif- ic world? All sectors of activities are impacted by a form of sex- ism which is caused mainly by two factors: the former is generated by the fact the rules were written by males for a world built for men, the latter was brought forth by the female nature, generally less inclined to competition and more inclined to sharing and for now still far from defending one's work. We have evidence of numerous cases where women's merits and talents were attributed to someone else in the family belonging to the stronger sex o r w e r e s n a t c h e d b y c o l - leagues. " T h e m a l e s e x i s f a v o r e d , w h i l e t h e female sex is prevented", s h e s a i d . I f s h e w e r e alive, would she still be fighting on this? I believe so, as long as dis- crimination barriers exist— she would never have pulled back. She also sided with her twin Paola, who fought when i t c a m e t o d e f e n d i n g t h e r i g h t s o f f e m a l e p a i n t e r s always excluded from large exhibitions in favor of male colleagues. Women's empowerment is a slow process. She combined knowl- e d g e , a n u n w a v e r i n g d e d i c a t i o n , a n d i n t u - ition. What other factors determined her person- ality? The major component for her success was the determi- n a t i o n t h a t l e d h e r t o demand in collaborators the same professional rigor she had. She was a strong-willed woman and had no time for self-indulgence. The three most impor- tant teachings she has passed on to you? I had already acquired the three most important teach- ings from my family's set of t e a c h i n g s — m y a u n t h a s m a i n l y c o n t r i b u t e d t o s t r e n g t h e n i n g t h e m . T h e first is rigor and commit- ment to face both work and life in general. The second is to always be available for others. The third is about putting respect in first place for oneself and others. In our family we share love of beauty, desire to trav- el and thirst for knowledge, t o g e t h e r w i t h p o w e r s o f observation, the merriment of improving the improvable, then optimism, and setting difficult goals. Y o u r a u n t s a i d s h e was "always on honey- moon or 'luna di miele'- b a s i c a l l y i n l o v e - n o t o n l y w i t h c h i c k e n e m b r y o s b u t w i t h t h e brain." Did she have to struggle to affirm that brain or did her lovable p e r s o n a l i t y n a t u r a l l y make it easier? She had to battle to affirm her thoughts and the settings she inferred to her work. When a woman dares natu- rally and carelessly to enter an all-male world, she must instill a sort of fear in others, such as the monsters of the fairy tales that scare chil- dren. When she enrolled in medical school there were six girls out of a hundred young guys. The same hap- pened to me decades later: w h e n I e n r o l l e d i n t h e E n g i n e e r i n g P o l y t e c h n i c t h e r e w e r e a d o z e n g i r l s spread over all classes of a five-year degree program. W h a t d o y o u m i s s about her most? I miss the opportunity to talk to an authoritative per- son of great experience. She was always in contact with the greatest innovators who marched to the beat of their own drum, taking new paths in research. She was always r e a d y t o d e s i g n a b e t t e r future by using her ability to connect information from different fields of knowledge. D o y o u c o n t i n u e t o live in the Roman house where she lived with her t w i n P a o l a a m o n g i n c r e d i b l e a r c h i v e s , images, and documents? After many years I still c a n ' t t h i n k t h a t h o u s e i s mine. I have not yet moved anything that was there. My sense of conservation pre- v e n t s m e f r o m r e p l a c i n g their things with my stuff— this makes me not forget what life was like when I was their guest. That is an awe- some affectionate place. Y o u w e r e b o r n t o a J e w i s h f a m i l y f r o m Piedmont: the Levi from Turin and the Montalcini from Monferrato. When the racial laws struck in 1938, your aunts fled to Brussels. Upon return- ing to Turin, Rita was unable to immediately attend university as a J e w a n d t h e r e f o r e turned her bedroom into a laboratory where she continued her research o n t h e r o l e o f g e n e t i c and environmental fac- tors in the differentia- tion of nerve centers. It was in her home labora- tory she observed and described apoptosis, a f o r m o f p r o g r a m m e d cell death. Until the end o f t h e w a r , s h e l i v e d underground, avoiding fearful roundups. She was in hiding in Asti and then in Florence. What drove her to obsessively pursue her research in makeshift labs in such a p r o b l e m a t i c t i m e ? A n a n e c d o t e a b o u t t h a t tough period? To ensure survival, even i n e x t r e m e s i t u a t i o n s , human beings take care of what interests them: it is the only way to avoid panicking without being overwhelmed by events. They avoid "wast- ing their time on fearing the w o r s t " a t t h e e x p e n s e o f what interests them – they can keep hope alive this way. Aunt Rita went to the Asti countryside farms searching for fertilized chicken eggs. She would say they were nec- essary to feed her children who needed highly nutrition- al food. Once she removed the embryo, on which she then worked, she made the leftover yolks into omelets for the whole family! U n f o r t u n a t e l y , racism, anti-Semitism, and the many faces of discrimination still exist. They will never die out completely. Not even the dif- ferent perceptions men and women have of each other will die out. Aunt Rita attrib- uted these "plagues" to the s l o w n e s s o f t h e a r c h a i c brain, the reptilian brain of survival, in evolving itself, if it ever evolves. She attended medical school against the will of her father Adamo Levi, an engineer and mathe- matician. She entered Continued from page 4 Rita Levi-Montalcini with her brother Gino, father of Piera (Photo courtesy of Archivio di Famiglia Piera Levi-Mon- talcini) Rita Levi-Montalcini and her niece Piera in Varenna, after a congress (Photo courtesy of Archivio di Famiglia Piera Levi-Montalcini) Continued to page 8

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