Marie Curie—An Extraordinary Story of Perseverance and Success in Science

The history of science is full of inspiring scientists' stories. Marie Curie holds a special place in scientific and human history. Besides being the first female scientist to receive a Nobel Prize, she is the only woman awarded it in two different scientific fields.

Marie Sklodowska was born on 7 November 1867 in Warsaw, Poland. In 1891 she went to Paris to study physics and mathematics at the Sorbonne University. There she met Physics Professor Pierre Curie and married him in 1895. Converting their wedding gifts into money, the newlyweds spent it all on two bicycles and celebrated their honeymoon with a 1-week cycling tour.

She worked on radioactivity with her husband, focusing on the work of German scientist Roentgen and French physicist Becquerel. In July 1898, the Curies announced a new element, named after her homeland, Polonium by Marie Curie. At the end of the same year, they announced the discovery of radium. For this work, Marie Curie, Pierre Curie and Becquerel received the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics.

The couple's successful life together was short-lived. In 1906, Pierre Curie died when a horse-drawn carriage overturned. A very difficult life awaited Marie. She began teaching at the university in her husband's place, becoming the first female faculty member at the Sorbonne Institute. She devoted her life to science and her students and received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1911.

Madame Curie's work was extremely important for developing X-ray devices used in surgery. During the First World War, she worked to install X-ray equipment in ambulances, sometimes even driving them herself.

Despite extraordinary success, Madame Curie struggled greatly in France's male-dominated scientific world and could not obtain enough financial support for her projects. Her health began deteriorating in the 1920s. On 4 July 1934, she died of leukemia (blood cancer) caused by exposure to high-energy ionizing radiation.

Madame Curie's work has an important place in today's cancer treatments. It enabled development of brachytherapy (internal radiotherapy). In other words, she enabled a treatment based on placing radioactive material into a tumor to shrink it. Such treatments are used for prostate cancer, cervical cancer and some early-stage breast cancers.

Madame Curie is one of science's most important symbols. She devoted her life to science and cancer research. Because radioactivity's effects were not well understood then, without protective clothing she worked with radioactive substances for years, never realizing how much they harmed her health. She became a role model and inspiration for many scientists today and a pioneer of women's active participation in science. Her elder daughter, Irène Curie, also won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1934 for discovering artificial radioactivity. Let us end this extraordinary life story with a beautiful quote from Madame Curie:

“Fear nothing in life; only try to understand everything.”

May we raise generations who never give up on science and continually question…