Jewish Lives: Rita Levi-Montalcini

(11.) In Praise of Imperfection, pp. 23-24.

(12.) In Praise of Imperfection, p. 25.

(13.) In Praise of Imperfection, p. 34.

(14.) In Praise of Imperfection, p. 35.

(15.) In Praise of Imperfection, p. 38.

(16.) In Praise of Imperfection, p. 50.

(17.) In Praise of Imperfection, p. 59.

(18.) In Praise of Imperfection, p. 60.

(19.) In Praise of Imperfection, p. 62.

(20.) In Praise of Imperfection, p. 64.

(21.) In Praise of Imperfection, p. 80.

(22.) In Praise of Imperfection, p. 80.

(23.) In Praise of Imperfection, p. 95.

(24.) In Praise of Imperfection, p. 97.

(25.) In Praise of Imperfection, p. 101.

(26.) In Praise of Imperfection, p. 102.

(27.) In Praise of Imperfection, p. 103.

(28.) In Praise of Imperfection, p. 139.

(29.) In Praise of Imperfection, p. 138.

(30.) James D. Watson, The Donble Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA (New York: Atheneum, 1968).

(31.) In Praise of Imperfection, p. 143.

(32.) In Praise of Imperfection, p. 151.

(33.) In Praise of Imperfection, p. 163.

(34.) In Praise of Imperfection, p. 167.

(35.) In Praise of Imperfection, p. 196.

(36.) In spite of these important contributions, it would have been very difficult for NGF research to continue in Italy had it not been for Pietro Calissano and Luigi Aloe, who collaborated with Rita for over twenty years in St. Louis and in Rome. During the second half of the 1970s the CNR favored microbiology over neurobiology, especially in funding. Production in Rita's lab was quantitatively and qualitatively far inferior to that in other European and in American labs where, increasingly, large, well-equipped teams of scientists were studying NGF. The desire to work independently was much stronger in Italy than in the United States, and the group of researchers and technicians that Rita had put together was losing its members. Dr. Pietro Calissano, director of the Institute of Neurobiology, CNR, whom I interviewed in 1991, attributed this loss partially to the fact that researchers found Rita to be controlling, pressuring. Also, according to Ruth Hogue Angeletti, American students were put off by Rita's outbursts when they committed errors. Her tirades were undoubtedly far less ferocious than those of Giuseppe Levi, for example, which were meekly accepted by male students. Calissano, Aloe and many others found Rita to be open, ethical, direct, honest, and the soul of generosity. But she preferred working in her lab to teaching and administration, particularly during a time when women science professors and directors of scientific research were few in number and resented both in the United States and Italy.

(37.) In Praise of Imperfection, p. 199.

(38.) "Science vs. the Female Scientist," The New York Times, 1/26/93.

(39.) In Praise of Perfection, p. 212. Corriere della Sera, April 15th, 1999.

(40.) Take thought of the seed from which you spring You were not born to live as brutes.

(41.) In Praise of Imperfection, pp. 2 12-214.

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