http://www.ilmattino.it/articolo.php?id=54618

Rita Levi Montalcini was born in Turin in the 1909.Entry to medical school of Levi. At age of twenty she graduated in 1936. During World War II, she 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. Her first genetics laboratory was in her bedroom at her home.

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 Italy.

She was appointed senator for life by the President of the Republic Carlo Azeglio Ciampi on the 1st August 2001. She

has received numerous other awards including four honorary degrees from the Universities of Uppsala (Sweden)-Weizmann Rehovot (Israel), St. Mary (USA) and Bocconi (Milan). She also won the International Award Saint-Vincent, the Feltrinelli Prize

and the Prix Albert Lasker "for medical research. Montalcini was also among the honorary members of CICAP, since its founding. In the non-scientific, in 2006, was author of the lyrics of a song by Johnny Logan who participated in the

selections for the Sanremo Festival 2007, but failed to qualify. On 22nd January 2008 was awarded the honorary degree in industrial biotechnology at the University of Milan Bocconi.

Rita Levi Montalcini has made one hundred years and perhaps his secret is no

longer a secret. she takes every day NGF (Nerve Growth

Factor) in the form of eye drops for eye problems. This

is the same molecule discovered by Montalcini in

the '50s and that earned her the prize Nobel. She assumed that substance reaches the brain, favoring the natural

plasticity. In short, the secret of the vitality of Italy's most

famous centenarian might lie precisely in his discovery.