Media Advisory: St. Louis Walk of Fame to induct Nobel laureate Rita Levi-Montalcini April 6

Levi-Montalcini

Who: Holden Thorp, provost and the Rita Levi-Montalcini Distinguished University Professor at Washington University in St. Louis, and Joe Edwards, founder of the St. Louis Walk of Fame and owner of numerous Delmar Loop businesses, including Blueberry Hill and the Moonrise Hotel

When: 11:30 a.m. Thursday, April 6, 2017

Where: 6136 Delmar Blvd., near the Regional Arts Commission in The Loop

What: Nobel Prize-winning neurobiologist Rita Levi-Montalcini will be posthumously inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame. Thorp and Edwards will reflect on the life and career of Levi-Montalcini, who died at the age of 103 in 2012 in her native Italy.

Levi-Montalcini, who was a professor of biology in Arts & Sciences, performed the majority of her research at Washington University from 1947-1977. In 1986, she shared the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine with biochemist Stanley Cohen, formerly of Washington University, for breakthroughs in the study of cell growth and development. Levi-Montalcini discovered nerve growth factor, a cellular “factor” that the body uses to direct the growth of nerve networks. Hundreds of growth factors are now known to exist and they affect almost all facets of biology.

Levi-Montalcini works in her lab. (Photo: Becker Medical Library)

More about the St. Louis Walk of Fame: The Walk of Fame celebrates some 150 St. Louisans who have made a lasting national impact in the arts, science, politics, civil rights, sports and journalism. Inductees must have been born in St. Louis or accomplished significant achievements while living in the region. About 30 inductees either studied, taught or conducted research at Washington University, including writers Stanley Elkin, A.E. Hotchner, William Gass and Gerald Early; scientists Arthur Holly Compton, Barry Commoner, William Masters and Virginia Johnson; and screenwriter and director Harold Ramis.

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