• Arch Ital Biol · Jun 2011

    Biography Historical Article

    Rita Levi-Montalcini and the discovery of NGF, the first nerve cell growth factor.

    • Luigi Aloe.
    • Institute of Neurobiology and Molecular Medicine, Consiglio Nazionale delle ricerche, Rome, Italy. aloe@inmm.cnr.it
    • Arch Ital Biol. 2011 Jun 1;149(2):175-81.

    AbstractThe nerve growth factor (NGF) is a signaling protein, discovered by Rita Levi-Montalcini in the early 1950's for its effect on growth and differentiation of specific populations of neurons of the peripheral nervous system. Originally identified as neurite outgrowth-stimulating factor, later studies revealed that the purified molecule has a number of target cells in the central nervous system and on nonneuronal cells. Moreover, recent studies showed the potential therapeutic properties of NGF in neuropathies of the central and peripheral nervous system and diseases of the eye and skin. Here I briefly describe the discovery of NGF, the early studies of Rita LeviMontalcini, a pioneer in modern neuroscience, and my scientific and human experience working in her laboratory for over 40 years.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…