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Camillo Golgi
Camillo Golgi, 1906
Born	(1843-07-07)July 7, 1843 Corteno, Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia, Austrian Empire
Died	January 21, 1926(1926-01-21) (aged 82) Pavia, Italy
Citizenship	Austrian Empire, Italian
Nationality	Italian
Fields	Neuroscience
Notable awards	Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1906)

Camillo Golgi (July 7, 1843 – January 21, 1926) was an Italian physician, pathologist, scientist, and Nobel laureate.

Biography[link]

Camillo Golgi was born in the village of Corteno, Lombardy, then part of the Austrian Empire. The village is now named Corteno Golgi in his honour. His father was a physician and district medical officer. Golgi studied at the University of Pavia, where he worked in the experimental pathology laboratory under Giulio Bizzozero, who elucidated the properties of bone marrow. He graduated in 1865. He spent much of his career studying the central nervous system. Tissue staining techniques in the later half of the 19th century were inadequate for studying nervous tissue. While working as chief medical officer in a psychiatric hospital, he experimented with metal impregnation of nervous tissue, using mainly silver (silver staining). He discovered a method of staining nervous tissue which would stain a limited number of cells at random, in their entirety. This enabled him to view the paths of nerve cells in the brain for the first time. He called his discovery the "black reaction" (in Italian, reazione nera), which later received his name (Golgi's method) or Golgi stain. The reason for the random staining is still not understood.

The black reaction consisted in fixing silver chromate particles to the neurilemma (the neuron membrane) by reacting silver nitrate with potassium dichromate. This resulted in a stark black deposit on the soma as well as on the axon and all dendrites, providing an exceedingly clear and well contrasted picture of neuron against a yellow background. The ability to visualize separate neurons led to the eventual acceptance of the neuron doctrine.^[1]

In addition to this discovery, Golgi discovered a tendon sensory organ that bears his name (Golgi receptor). He studied the life cycle of Plasmodium and related the timing of tertian and quartan fevers seen in malaria with the life cycle of the organisms now named Plasmodium vivax and Plasmodium malariae, respectively.^[2] Using his staining technique, Golgi identified the intracellular reticular apparatus in 1898 which bears his name, the Golgi apparatus.

In renal physiology Golgi is renowned for being the first to show that the distal tubulus of the nephron returns to its originating glomerulus, a finding that he published in 1889 ("Annotazioni intorno all'Istologia dei reni dell'uomo e di altri mammifieri e sull'istogenesi dei canalicoli oriniferi". Rendiconti R. Acad. Lincei 5: 545–557, 1889).

Golgi, together with Santiago Ramón y Cajal, received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1906 for his studies of the structure of the nervous system. In 1900 he was named senator by king Umberto I.^[3]

Golgi died in Pavia, Italy, on January 21, 1926.

Drawing by Camillo Golgi of a hippocampus stained with the silver nitrate method.

Monuments in Pavia[link]

In Pavia several landmarks stand as Golgi’s memory.

• A marble statue, in a yard of the old buildings of the University of Pavia, at N.65 of the central “Strada Nuova”. On the basament, there is the following inscription in Italian language: "Camillo Golgi / patologo sommo / della scienza istologica / antesignano e maestro / la segreta struttura / del tessuto nervoso / con intenta vigilia / sorprese e descrisse / qui operò / qui vive / guida e luce ai venturi / MDCCCXLIII – MCMXXVI" (Camillo Golgi / outstanding pathologist / of histological science / precursor and master / the secret structure / of the nervous tissue / with strenuous effort / discovered and described / here he worked / here he lives / here he guides and enlightens future scholars / 1843 – 1926).
• "Golgi’s home", also in Strada Nuova, at N.77, a few hundreds meters away from the University, just in front to the historical “Teatro Fraschini”. It is the home in which Golgi spent the most of his family life, with his wife Lina.
• Golgi’s tomb is in the Monumental Cemetery of Pavia (viale San Giovannino), along the central lane, just before the big monument to the fallen of the First World War. It is a very simple granite grave, with a bronze medallion representing the scientist’s profile. Near Golgi’s tomb, apart from his wife, two other important Italian medical scientists are buried: Bartolomeo Panizza and Adelchi Negri. People are still inspired by him today.

Eponyms[link]

• The organelle Golgi apparatus or Golgi complex
• The sensory receptor Golgi tendon organ
• Golgi's method or Golgi stain, a nervous tissue staining technique
• The enzyme Golgi alpha-mannosidase II
• Golgi cells of the cerebellum
• Golgi I nerve cells (with long axons)
• Golgi II nerve cells (with short or no axons)

See also[link]

• List of pathologists

References[link]

• Paolo Mazzarello (2010), Golgi: A Biography of the Founder of Modern Neuroscience, Translated by Aldo Badiani and Henry A. Buchtel, New York: Oxford University Press, ISBN [[Special:BookSources/970195337846|970195337846]] 
• De Carlos, Juan A; Borrell, José (2007), "A historical reflection of the contributions of Cajal and Golgi to the foundations of neuroscience.", Brain research reviews 55 (1): 8–16, 2007 August, DOI:10.1016/j.brainresrev.2007.03.010, PMID 17490748 
• Muscatello, Umberto (2007), "Golgi's contribution to medicine.", Brain research reviews 55 (1): 3–7, 2007 August, DOI:10.1016/j.brainresrev.2007.03.007, PMID 17462742 
• Kruger, Lawrence (2007), "The sensory neuron and the triumph of Camillo Golgi.", Brain research reviews 55 (2): 406–10, 2007 October, DOI:10.1016/j.brainresrev.2007.01.008, PMID 17408565 
• Dröscher, A (1998), "The history of the Golgi apparatus in neurones from its discovery in 1898 to electron microscopy.", Brain Res. Bull. 47 (3): 199–203, 1998 October, DOI:10.1016/S0361-9230(98)00080-X, PMID 9865850 
• Fabene, P F; Bentivoglio, M (1998), "1898–1998: Camillo Golgi and "the Golgi": one hundred years of terminological clones.", Brain Res. Bull. 47 (3): 195–8, 1998 October, DOI:10.1016/S0361-9230(98)00079-3, PMID 9865849 
• Mironov, A A; Komissarchik, Ia Iu; Mironov, A A; Snigirevskaia, E S; Luini, A (1998), "[Current concept of structure and function of the Golgi apparatus. On the 100-anniversary of the discovery by Camillo Golgi]", Tsitologiia 40 (6): 483–96, PMID 9778732 
• Farquhar, M G; Palade, G E (1998), "The Golgi apparatus: 100 years of progress and controversy.", Trends Cell Biol. 8 (1): 2–10, 1998 January, DOI:10.1016/S0962-8924(97)01187-2, PMID 9695800 
• Bentivoglio, M (1998), "1898: the Golgi apparatus emerges from nerve cells.", Trends Neurosci. 21 (5): 195–200, 1998 May, DOI:10.1016/S0166-2236(98)01229-6, PMID 9610881 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Camillo Golgi

External links[link]

• Life and Discoveries of Camillo Golgi
• The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1906
• Some places and memories related to Camillo Golgi
• The museum in Corteno, now called Corteno Golgi, dedicated to Golgi. Includes a gallery of images of his birthplace.

Senator for life Rita Levi-Montalcini
Rita Levi-Montalcini
Born	(1909-04-22) April 22, 1909 (age 103) Turin, Italy
Nationality	Italian
Fields	Neurology
Institutions	Washington University in St. Louis
Alma mater	Turin Medical School, University of Turin
Known for	Nerve growth factor
Notable awards	Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1986) National Medal of Science (1987)

Rita Levi-Montalcini (Italian pronunciation: [ˈrita ˈlɛvi montalˈtʃini]; born 22 April 1909^[1]), Knight Grand Cross,^[2] is an Italian neurologist who, together with colleague Stanley Cohen, received the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discovery of nerve growth factor (NGF).^[3] Since 2001, she has also served in the Italian Senate as a Senator for Life.

Today, Levi-Montalcini is the oldest living Nobel laureate and the first ever to reach a 100th birthday.^[4] On 22 April 2009, she was feted with a 100th birthday party at Rome's city hall.^{[dead link][5]}

Early life[link]

Born in Turin^[1] to a Jewish family, together with her twin sister Paola she was the youngest of four children. Her parents were Adamo Levi, an electrical engineer and gifted mathematician, and Adele Montalcini, a painter.

Levi-Montalcini decided to attend medical school after seeing a close family friend die of cancer,^{[citation needed]} overcoming the objections of her father who believed that "a professional career would interfere with the duties of a wife and mother". She enrolled in the Turin medical school in 1930. After graduating in 1936, she went to work as Giuseppe Levi's assistant, but her academic career was cut short by Benito Mussolini's 1938 Manifesto of Race and the subsequent introduction of laws barring Jews from academic and professional careers.^{[citation needed]}

Professional life[link]

During World War II, Levi-Montalcini conducted experiments from a home laboratory, studying the growth of nerve fibers in chicken embryos which laid the groundwork for much of her later research. (She describes this experience decades later in the 1995 science documentary Death by Design/The Life and Times of Life and Times,^[6] which also features her identical twin sister Paola, who had entered a decades-long career in the arts.) Her first genetics laboratory was in her bedroom at her home. In 1943, her family fled south to Florence, and she set up a laboratory there also. Her family returned to Turin in 1945.

In September 1946, Levi-Montalcini accepted an invitation to Washington University in St. Louis, under the supervision of Professor Viktor Hamburger. Although the initial invitation was for one semester, she stayed for thirty years. It was there that she did her most important work: isolating the nerve growth factor (NGF) from observations of certain cancerous tissues that cause extremely rapid growth of nerve cells in 1952. She was made a Full Professor in 1958, and in 1962, established a research unit in Rome, dividing the rest of her time between there and St. Louis.

From 1961 to 1969 she directed the Research Center of Neurobiology of the CNR (Rome), and from 1969 to 1978 the Laboratory of Cellular Biology.

Rita Levi-Montalcini founded the European Brain Research Institute, covering the appointment of president. Her role in this institute was at the center of some criticism from some parts of the scientific community in 2010 ^[7]

Controversies were raised by the collaboration of Prof. Montalcini with the Italian Pharmaceutical Factory Fidia. Since 1975 the scientist promoted the drug Cronassial produced by Fidia from bovine brain. The drug turned out some years later to be able to cause a severe neurological syndrome (Guillain-Barré syndrome). For this reason Germany banned Cronassial in 1983, followed by other countries. Italy prohibited the drug only in 1993.^[8][9][10] In light of this episode serious criticism was levied at Levi-Montalcini.^[11]

Senator for Life[link]

On 1 August 2001 she was appointed as Senator for Life^[1] by the President of the Italian Republic, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi.

On 28–29 April 2006, Levi-Montalcini, aged 97, attended the opening assembly of the newly-elected Senate, at which the President of the Senate was elected; she declared her preference for the centre-left candidate Franco Marini. Levi-Montalcini, who is the senior member of the Upper House, chose not to be the temporary president on this occasion. She actively takes part in the Upper House discussions, unless busy in academic activities around the world.^{[citation needed]} Due to her support of the government of Romano Prodi, she was often criticized by some right-wing senators, who accused her of "saving" the government when the government's exiguous majority in the Senate was at risk. She has been frequently insulted in public, and on blogs, since 2006, by both center-right senators such as Francesco Storace, and far-right bloggers for her age and Jewish origins.^[12][13] Levi-Montalcini is currently the oldest living and the longest-lived Nobel laureate who, though hard of hearing and nearly blind, recently vowed to remain a political force in her country.^[14]

On Sunday, 17 January 2010, she was present in Rome's main synagogue, during the official visit of Pope Benedict XVI.^[15]

Family[link]

Levi-Montalcini had an older brother Gino, who died after a heart attack in 1974. He was one of the most well known Italian architects and a professor at the University of Turin.

She also had two sisters: Anna, five years older than Rita, and Paola, her twin sister. Paola Levi-Montalcini was a popular artist, who died 29 September 2000, aged 91. She and her twin were featured in the 1995 science documentary Death by Design / The Life and Times of Life and Times.

Awards and honors[link]

In 1968, she became the tenth woman elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences.

In 1985, she was awarded the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize from Columbia University together with Stanley Cohen (co-winner of 1986 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine) and Viktor Hamburger.

In 1986 Levi-Montalcini and collaborator Stanley Cohen received the Nobel Prize in Medicine, as well as the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research. This made her the fourth Nobel Prize winner to come from Italy's small (less than 50,000 people) but very old Jewish community, after Emilio Segrè, Salvador Luria (a university colleague and friend) and Franco Modigliani.

In 1987, she received the National Medal of Science, the highest American scientific honor.

In 1999, Levi-Montalcini was nominated Goodwill Ambassador of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) by FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf.^[16]

In 2001 she was nominated Senator-for-life by the Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi.

In 2006 Levi-Montalcini received the degree Honoris Causa in Biomedical Engineering from the Polytechnic University of Turin, in her native city.

In 2008 she received the PhD Honoris Causa from the Complutense University of Madrid, Spain.

She is a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and is a founder member of Città della Scienza.^[17]

Publishing[link]

• Rita Levi Montalcini, Elogio dell'imperfezione, Gli elefanti Saggi, Garzanti, 1999 (nuova edizione accresciuta).
• Rita Levi-Montalcini, Origine ed Evoluzione del nucleo accessorio del Nervo abducente nell'embrione di pollo, Tip. Cuggiani, 1942
• Rita Levi-Montalcini, Elogio dell'imperfezione, Garzanti, 1987
• Rita Levi-Montalcini, NGF : apertura di una nuova frontiera nella neurobiologia, Roma Napoli, 1989
• Rita Levi-Montalcini, Sclerosi multipla in Italia : aspetti e problemi, AISM, 1989
• Rita Levi-Montalcini, Il tuo futuro, Garzanti, 1993
• Rita Levi-Montalcini, Per i settanta anni della Enciclopedia italiana, 1925–1995, Istituto della Enciclopedia italiana, 1995
• Rita Levi-Montalcini, Senz’olio contro vento, Baldini & Castoldi, 1996
• Rita Levi-Montalcini, L’asso nella manica a brandelli, Baldini & Castoldi, 1998
• Rita Levi-Montalcini, La galassia mente, Baldini & Castoldi, 1999
• Rita Levi-Montalcini, Cantico di una vita, Raffaello Cortina Editore, 2000
• Rita Levi-Montalcini, Un universo inquieto, 2001
• Rita Levi-Montalcini, Tempo di mutamenti, 2002
• Rita Levi-Montalcini, Abbi il coraggio di conoscere, 2004
• Rita Levi-Montalcini, Tempo di azione, 2004
• Rita Levi-Montalcini, Eva era africana, 2005
• Rita Levi-Montalcini, I nuovi Magellani nell’er@ digitale, 2006
• Rita Levi-Montalcini, Tempo di revisione, 2006
• Rita Levi-Montalcini, Rita Levi-Montalcini racconta la scuola ai ragazzi, 2007
• Rita Levi-Montalcini, L'altra parte del mondo, 2009

See also[link]

• List of female Nobel laureates
• List of Jewish Nobel laureates

Footnotes[link]

References[link]

• Aloe, Luigi (2004), "Rita Levi-Montalcini: the discovery of nerve growth factor and modern neurobiology.", Trends Cell Biol. 14 (7): 395–9, 2004 Jul, DOI:10.1016/j.tcb.2004.05.011, PMID 15246433 
• Shampo, Marc A.; Kyle, Robert A. (2003), "Stamp vignette on medical science. Rita Levi-Montalcini's Nobel Prize for work in neurology.", Mayo Clinic Proc. 78 (12): 1448, 2003 Dec, DOI:10.4065/78.12.1448, PMID 14661672 
• Aloe, L. (2003), "Rita Levi-Montalcini and the discovery of nerve growth factor: past and present studies.", Archives italiennes de biologie 141 (2–3): 65–83, March 2003, PMID 12825318 
• Cowan, W. M. (2001), "Viktor Hamburger and Rita Levi-Montalcini: the path to the discovery of nerve growth factor", Annual Neuroscience Review 24: 551–600, DOI:10.1146/annurev.neuro.24.1.551, PMID 11283321 
• Provine, R. R. (2001), "In the trenches with Viktor Hamburger and Rita Levi-Montalcini (1965-1974): one student's perspective", Int. J. Dev. Neurosci. 19 (2): 143–49, April 2001, DOI:10.1016/S0736-5748(00)00081-2, PMID 11255028 
• Levi-Montalcini, R. (2000), "From a home-made laboratory to the Nobel Prize: an interview with Rita Levi-Montalcini", Int. J. Dev. Biol. 44 (6): 563–66, PMID 11061418 
• Raju, T. N. (2000), "The Nobel chronicles - 1986: Stanley Cohen (b. 1922); Rita Levi-Montalcini (b. 1909)", Lancet 355 (9202): 506, 5 February 2000, PMID 10841166 
• Aloe, L. (1999), "Rita Levi-Montalcini: a brief biographic view of past and present studies on nerve growth factor", Microsc. Res. Tech. 45 (4–5): 207–09, DOI:10.1002/(SICI)1097-0029(19990515/01)45:4/5<207::AID-JEMT3>3.0.CO;2-E, PMID 10383112 
• Bendiner, E. (1992), "Rita Levi-Montalcini and the unveiling of growth factors", Hosp. Pract. (Off. Ed.) 27 (4A): 135–45, 1992 Apr 30, PMID 1560084 
• Pécsi, T. (1987), "Nobel Prize for medicine, 1986 (Rita Levi-Montalcini)", Orvosi hetilap 128 (20): 1047–48, 17 May 1987, PMID 3295669 
• Weltman, J.K. (1987), "The 1986 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine awarded for discovery of growth factors: Rita Levi-Montalcini, M.D., and Stanley Cohen, Ph.D", N Engl Reg Allergy Proc 8 (1): 47–48, DOI:10.2500/108854187779045385, PMID 3302667 

Sources[link]

• Levi-Montalcini, Rita, In Praise of Imperfection: My Life and Work.(Elogio dell'imperfezione) Basic Books, New York, 1988.
• Yount, Lisa (1996). Twentieth Century Women Scientists. New York: Facts on File. ISBN 0-8160-3173-8.
• Muhm, Myriam : Vage Hoffnung für Parkinson-Kranke - Überlegungen der Medizin-Nobelpreisträgerin Rita Levi-Montalcini, Süddeutsche Zeitung #293, p. 22. December 1986 "L'Archivio "medicina - medicine"". Larchivio.org. http://www.larchivio.org/xoom/myriammontalcini.htm. Retrieved 2011-03-16. 

External links[link]

• Autobiography at the Nobel e-Museum
• Interview with Rita Levi-Montalcini (dated 26 November 2008)
• Article in German
• The Official Site of Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize
• Article in Nature at 100th anniversary: "Neuroscience: One hundred years of Rita"
• AFP Biography (dated 22 April 2009) celebrating Rita Levi-Montalcini's 100th Birthday
• Is this the secret of eternal life? (Independent article on R L-M)
• Italians rally to condemn Nobel 'bribe' allegation: Professor rejects claim by civil servant that a pharmaceuticals firm 'bought' her 1986 prize for medicine
• An Annual Reviews Conversations Interview with Rita Levi-Montalcini (video)