Because of these laws, Italy lost some of its best scientists. Some were fired. For example, Rita Levi-Montalcini, who would later win the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, was told she could no longer work at her university. Others left Italy because of the laws. For example, Enrico Fermi, who worked on the first nuclear reactor and won the Nobel Prize for Physics, left the country. (His wife was Jewish.) Many other well-known scientists, physicists, mathematicians, and other scholars lost their jobs or left Italy because of the race laws.