Vienna - Italian-born Nobel laureate Mario Capecchi said he
wanted to meet the woman claiming to be his half-sister.
Marlene Ramberg-Bonelli, a 68-year-old woman living in
Finkenstein, Austria claims to have discovered her long-lost half-
brother in the Nobel laureate.
Dolomiten, a newspaper in the Italian province South Tyrol, said
on Wednesday it was setting up a meeting between the two alleged
siblings. 'She seems to be a very nice person,' Capecchi was quoted
as saying by the paper.
'My mother never mentioned her, the news about her existence was
very surprising. But during times of war unexpected things can
happen. One of the most wonderful surprises thanks to being awarded
the Nobel Prize is finding out about my sister's existence,' he said.
Bonelli, born in 1939, had been adopted by the Southern Tyrolian
family Bonelli after their mother, Lucia (Lucy) Ramberg was deported
to the Dachau concentration camp in 1941.
Her older half-brother was taken to safety to a farmer's family
near Bolzano, but after the money his mother had provided ran out, he
was left to fend for himself on the streets or living in orphanages
for more than four years, almost dying of malnutrition.
Ramberg survived the death camp, was reunited with her son after a
long search and emigrated to the United States. Some historians
however dispute that Ramberg was in Dachau, as she cannot be found in
the camp archives.
The molecular geneticist Capecchi, a Howard Hughes Medical
Institute Investigator and Distinguished Professor of Human Genetics
and Biology at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, was one of
three co-winners of the 2007 Nobel Prize for Medicine.
The three scientists were awarded the prize for their
groundbreaking work regarding the principles for introducing specific
gene modifications in mice by the use of embryonic stem cells.
After the high honours for Capecchi became public, relatives in
South Tyrol showed Bonelli an old photo of the Nobel laureate,
claiming he was her brother. 'I only found out now and I am happy to
know that he is still alive and especially that our mother
remarried,' Bonelli said.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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