–awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine.
Received the prize—along with colleague Stanley Cohen—for their discovery of NGF (Nerve Growth Factor).
Born in 1909, as of 2008 she was the oldest living Nobel laureate. Born in Turin Italy to a Sephardic Jewish family, her father Adamo Levi was an electrician and gifted mathematician, and her mother Adele, a talented painter. Rita is an honorific Senator for Life in the Italian Senate.