About a month ago, the scientific world bid farewell to a giant, Dr. Rita Levi-Montalcini. Her name immediately rang several bells when I read this on the news, for she is quite a big name in the field of neuroscience. Dr. Levi-Montalcini, along with her then-colleague, Dr. Stanley Cohen, discovered a small protein which they later named the Nerve Growth Factor (NGF). This little protein is crucial in the development of the nervous system: its release manages to “attract” the receiving end of a neural cell. In a nutshell, its regulation would make sure that neural cells are properly wired with each other. NGF and other proteins of similar functions are also found to play an important role in the formation of cancerous tumours and also in neurodegenerative disorders. Drs. Levi-Montalcini and Cohen were awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1986 for this great contribution.
In addition to being the first Nobel laureate who has lived to become a centenarian (she was 103 when she died), Dr. Levi-Montalcini was also nominated to be a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences (PAS) in the 1970s, and a quick search within the website shows that she was quite active in the different conferences hosted by the PAS. This is all the more interesting, given that Dr. Levi-Montalcini was an atheist. In fact, several prominent atheist websites also published articles that bemoaned her passing. One may rightly ask: why would Dr. Levi-Montalcini agreed to join the PAS? Or, why did the PAS invite her?
