Remembering Stanley Cohen Stanley Cohen was awarded one half of the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, along with Rita Levi-Montalcini, for the discovery of nerve growth factor. Dr. Cohen eventually went on to discover epidermal growth factor (EGF). By understanding the mechanism of how EGF works, he was in part responsible for the tyrosine kinase inhibitor revolution (tyrosine kinase being an enzyme involved in the mechanism), which brought a host of whole new pharmacologic treatments to diseases from cancer to autoimmune conditions.