In 1940s Turin, with fascism rising and bombs falling, a young woman built a secret laboratory in her bedroom using repurposed sewing needles and a handmade incubator. Legally barred from the university for being Jewish, Rita Levi-Montalcini dissected chicken embryos anyway. This deep dive traces how she survived the Holocaust and rewired our understanding of the brain.

Her bedroom observations about nerve cells withering without connection led, after the war, to work in St. Louis and Rio de Janeiro. Grafting tumors onto embryos revealed a chemical signal she named nerve growth factor, earning the 1986 Nobel Prize. Her later life included the Fidia drug controversy, mast cell research, and service as an Italian Senator for life.

• Building a wartime lab and her early nerve-pruning discovery
• Fleeing to Florence under false i ...