A truly surprising discovery that could give a real turning point in the treatment of a complex disease. It has been 34 years since Rita Levi Montalcini received the Nobel Prize for her discovery. Now an important research carried out by Ebri, the European Brain Research Institute, the international scientific research institute she founded is based precisely on the discovery of Montalcini. The nerve growth factor, Ngf, she discovered could become a drug to protect nerve cells from Alzheimer's.
Montalcini, what the new research consists of
To start the experimentation is precisely the international institute, to which Rita Levi Montalcini has dedicated the last 12 years of hers life. He also drove it for 10 years. So the growth factor discovered by the great scientist could give hope for the cure of one of the most serious diseases of the nervous system. "We are working on developing a variant of the Ngf protein -the president of Ebri, Antonino Cattaneo, underlined to Ansa-. That may provide nerve fiber protection against Alzheimer's-related neurodegeneration".
The drug has not yet been produced, but we are on the right track. "The goal is to develop - added -, together with the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa, a nasal spray that can act on the brain ". The human clinical trial is expected to begin and is expected to start within a couple of years.
It is not the first time that the growth factor Ngf, discovered by Levi Montalcini, is used as a drug. In the past, in fact, it had been registered as a form of eye drops against a form of corneal ulcer. "Now we are breaking new ground - clarified Cattaneo -, to develop a variant of Ngf that can protect nerve cells, before the degeneration triggered by Alzheimer's becomes irreversible".
The Nobel Prize for Medicine to Levi Montalcini in 1986
At the height of her research Rita Levi Montalcini won the Nobel Prize for medicine. Together with Washington University colleague Stanley Cohen he discovered the growth factor. Despite the initial skepticism of the scientific community, the research continued. Scientists identified one of the earliest and most important growth factors. Substances produced by the body and which are responsible for many cellular processes.
The life of the scientist and her contribution to research
Born on April 22, 1909 in Turin, Rita Levi Montalcini was one of the most important scientists of the twentieth century. In 1936 he graduated in Medicine and Surgery with 110 cum laude. Then the specialization in Neurology and Psychiatry and the start of research. From a Jewish family forced to take refuge in Belgium during the Second World War. Then the studies in America, the return to Italy, the Nobel. She was also a life senator from 2001 until her death in 2012. She was 103 years old. Part of his life told in a film broadcast on Raiuno directed by Alberto Negrin, with Elena Sofia Ricci.
In one of the last interviews Levi Montalcini had sent a great message. “I lost my sight a little, my hearing a lot. At conferences, I don't see projections and I don't hear well. But I think more now than when I was twenty. The body does what it wants. I am not the body: I am the mind".
