It sounds like vintage Hollywood. Driven from the university by Italy's Fascists just before World War II, a brilliant young Jewish biologist persists in her pioneering research into the nervous system, using makeshift equipment in a farmhouse bedroom. Food is so scarce that after experimenting on chicken embryos, she whips the leftover yolks into omelets. But she perseveres. Invited to work in the U.S. after the war, she meets a young biochemist, and together they launch a new field that promises hope for everything from cancer to burns.
Last week provided a dramatic climax to this improbable real-life tale as Dr....