Rita Levi-Montalcini was an Italian Nobel Laureate honored for her work in neurobiology. Rita Levi-Montalcini was born in Turin, Italy, on April 22, 1909. Levi-Montalcini studied medicine at the University of Turin and did research there on the effects that peripheral tissues have on nerve cell growth. Although she was forced into hiding in Florence during the German occupation of Italy (1943–45) because of her Jewish ancestry, she was able to resume her research at Turin after the war. In 1947 she accepted a post at Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, with the zoologist Viktor Hamburger, who was studying the growth of nerve tissue in chick embryos. She eventually held dual citizenship in Italy and the United States. She received the National Medal Of Science in 1987.