Rita Levi-Montalcini Built Bedroom Laboratory

In 1938, Italian scientist Rita Levi-Montalcini lost her university anatomy position after anti-Jewish laws forced her out of academic work. She set up a small laboratory in her bedroom and continued studying nerve fiber growth in chicken embryos. That research helped lead to her discovery of nerve growth factor, a protein involved in the growth and survival of nerve cells. In 1986, Levi-Montalcini shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery.

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