Yesterday, Italian Nobel Prize winner for Medicine Renato Dulbecco ied at the age of 98.
He was born in Catanzaro, in Calabria, and studied medicine at the University of Turin, graduating in Morbid Anatomy and Pathology under the supervision of professor Giuseppe Levi. During these years he met Salvador Luria and Rita Levi-Montalcini, whose friendship and encouragement would turn to have an important role in his career and research.
Dulbecco was called up for military service as a medical officer in WWI and then again in WWII. He was wounded on the Russian front and after hospitalisation and the collapse of Fascism, he joined partisans fighting against German occupation forces in Italy.
After the war he resumed his work at Levi's laboratory, but soon moved to the U.S. with his friend Rita Levi-Montalcini, where he worked with Salvador Luria on bacteriophages.
In 1975 he won the the Nobel Prize for Medicine with Howard M. Temin and David Baltimore. The research they carried out during the 1950s pioneered laboratory growing of viruses lending insight into cell growth. The research helped pave the way for studying tumour cells to better fight cancer.
A naturalised US citizen, Dulbecco remained a well known figure in Italy, appearing in his later years on television shows to promote cancer research.
