Witness

During World War Two, Italian scientist Dr Rita Levi-Montalcini was forced to do experiments in her bedroom after being banned from universities because she was Jewish. Her experiments in that bedroom laboratory on chicken embryos led to the discovery of nerve cell death. Whilst working in the United States after the war, she worked out that a protein factor was required for the growth of our nerves. A discovery which won her the Nobel Prize in physiology in 1986. Her work improved our understanding of the nervous system and has allowed scientists to potentially battle degenerative diseases such as dementia. Produced and presented by Tim O’Callaghan, using archive interviews from the Nobel Prize Institute, the Society for Neuroscience and the BBC Archives. Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back i