Since the first awarding of the prizes, in 1901, six Italians have been awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine. Here is who they are and what they were awarded for.
The first Italian doctor to enter Nobel history is Camillo Golgi in 1906. Born in 1843, Golgi is best known for his studies on the anatomy of nerve endings: his discovery of the reticular apparatus inside nerve cells, later renamed “Golgi Apparatus”, which earned him recognition.
Italy must wait until 1957 to once again be awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine. Thanks to Daniel Bovet, discoverer of pyrilamine, the first antihistamine drug in history. Biochemist born in Switzerland in 1907, after his doctorate in Zoology and Comparative Anatomy, he moved first to France, then to Italy. The Nobel Prize comes thanks to studies in Chemotherapy and Pharmacology. During his long career he has been involved in the study of various medical treatments, including those based on sympatholytics, related to the treatment of blood pressure and anxiety states. It also deals with the study of muscle relaxants and their adjuvant action in surgery. Bovet died in Rome in 1992.
Turin is the birthplace of Salvatore luria, born in 1912, the third Italian to win the Nobel Prize for Medicine. The recognition comes in 1969, thanks to the studies on the multiplication and mutability of viruses. Thanks to his research, the foundations are laid for the birth of bacterial genetics, molecular biology and virology as independent subjects. Luria died in Lexington, United States in 1991.
Fourth Italian to be awarded in medicine is Renato Dulbecco, who in 1975 was awarded the Nobel Prize for his studies on viruses that cause tumors, managing to show that the genetic material of viruses enters the DNA of cells and becomes part of it. Born in Catanzaro in 1914 and later in Turin where he studied Medicine and graduated with Salvatore Luria and Rita Levi-Montalcini. Passionate about Oncology, Dulbecco is one of the biologists who deserve the credit for having designed the mapping and sequencing of the human genome. In 1953 he took American citizenship and in the United States he discovered the self-repair mechanisms of the DNA damaged by radiation and had the merit of isolating the first polio mutant. He died in 2012 in California.
We have to wait until 1986 to see the Nobel Prize for medicine awarded to an Italian. To get it is Rita Levi-Montalcini, a neurologist born in Turin in 1909. Of Jewish origin, the racial laws issued by the fascist regime force her to flee to Belgium. But from Brussels, during the Second World War, he returned to Italy first in Turin, then in Florence, where he held the role of doctor for the allies, and then, in 1946 at Washington University in Saint Louis. It is precisely in the United States that he discovers the growth factor of the nerve fiber, the ngf, a protein involved in the innervation processes of the organs and tissues of the body. Senator for life since 2001, Rita Levi-Montalcini died in Rome in 2012.
The naturalized American geneticist from Verona Mario Renato Capecchi, born in 1937, is the sixth and last Nobel Prize for Medicine won by an Italian. Graduated in Biophysics from Harvard in 1967, he obtained recognition in 2007 for having contributed to the discovery of gene targeting. These are techniques that, through the use of embryonic stem cells, allow to generate animals characterized by the absence of a specific gene. These modalities are contributing to the study of tumors, neurobiology, immunology and embryogenesis processes.
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