“After a short period spent in Brussels as a guest of a neurological institute, I returned to Turin on the verge of the invasion of Belgium by the German army, Spring 1940, to join my family. The two alternatives left then to us were either to emigrate to the United States, or to pursue some activity that needed neither support nor connection with the outside Aryan world where we lived. My family chose this second alternative. I then decided to build a small research unit at home and installed it in my bedroom.”
![“As for the presence of large NGF [nerve growth factor] sources in snake venom and male genital organs, they may be conceived as instances of bizarre evolutionary gene expression.” quote by Rita Levi-Montalcini](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/78c/rita-levi-montalcini-22012_bizarre_as-for-the-presence-of-large-ngf-nerve-g_91796.jpg)
