ROME, April 22 (UPI) -- Nobel Prize-winning scientist neurologist Rita Levi Montalcini turned 100 years old Wednesday in Italy.
At a birthday celebration at Rome's City Hall, Education Minister Mariastella Gelmini announced new funding aimed at keeping young scientists in Italy, as well as money to keep Montalcini's brain research lab Ebri in operation, ANSA reported.
''I would never have dreamed of such incredible gifts,'' said Montalcini, who spent 15 years in the United States.
At the event was Stanley Cohen, the American scientist with whom Montalcini shared the 1986 Nobel Prize in Medicine for their discovery of Nerve Growth Factor in the peripheral nervous system.
''We worked together for so many years and never argued,'' said Cohen, 86.
The Italian news service ANSA noted Montalcini has criticized the Italian government over spending cuts to scientific research. She has also lashed out at the Roman Catholic Church over its opposition to embryonic stem cell research.
