Woman of the Week: Marie Curie

by Jessica Stein

Maria Salomea Sklodowski, better well-known as Marie Curie, was born in Warsaw, Poland, on Nov. 7, 1867. She is most well-known for developing the theory of radioactivity, discovering radium and polonium, and creating techniques for isolating radioactive isotopes. In addition to those major accomplishments, she also mobilized x-ray services during WWI, founded the Curie Institutes (which are still major medical research facilities today), and used her work with radioactive isotopes to conduct the world’s first studies to use them to treat neoplasms, more commonly known as tumors.

In her early years, she was given a general education from local schools, a bit of extra scientific training from her father, and eventually decided to leave her home for Paris after joining a student’s revolutionary organization. She was continuing her studies at the Sorbonne in Paris by 1891 and met the Professor in the School of Physics, Pierre Curie, in 1894. They were married a year later. She soon succeeded her husband as Head of the Physics Laboratory, received her Doctor of Science degree in 1903, assumed the position of Professor of General Physics in the Faculty of Sciences after her husband passed away in 1906 (the first time a woman held this position), and was also appointed as Director of the Curie Laboratory in the Radium Institute of the University of Paris, founded in 1914.

Marie was a strong Polish woman who never lost pride or her sense of identity for her native country. She decided to keep both of her names (Sklodowski and Curie), made it a priority to teach her daughters how to speak Polish, and also went on family excursions back to her homeland. She also named the first element she isolated, polonium, after Poland.

“A scientist in his laboratory is not a mere technician: he is also a child confronting natural phenomena that impress him as though they were fairy tales.”

Due to lack of funds and their expanded family, Marie picked up an extra teaching job to help support the family, while her and Pierre’s work would be carried out in a shed next to the School of Physics and Chemistry. Both were unaware of the effects that their work would have on them in that unprotected environment. Pierre took such an interest in her work that he decided to drop his own work on crystals to aid her. They discovered a lot together, but both realized that most of the work was that of Marie’s. She knew that it would be difficult for many people to believe a woman could be involved in that field and discover the things that she did, but she was prepared to handle it. She published her work promptly, but in some of her research, was beaten to the punch by another scientist from Berlin. Between 1898 and 1902, the Curies published a total of 32 scientific papers, including one that said tumor-forming cells were destroyed quicker than healthier ones when exposed to radium.

 

 

“I was taught that the way of progress was neither swift nor easy.”

Marie became the first faculty member at the École Normale Supérieure in 1900. In 1903, she was awarded her doctorate from the Univ. of Paris. Even after all of her accomplishments, when the couple was invited to speak at the Royal Institution in London on radioactivity, she was prevented from speaking because she was a woman. The same year she was awarded her doctorate, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. Her name was added to the nomination after an advocate for women scientists spoke to Pierre about the situation. She was the first woman to receive a Nobel Prize.

The prize money was used to fund a new laboratory, support their family, and provide some luxuries for themselves and their work. With the new equipment and materials, she was able to isolate radium and received a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1911. She was the first person to win two Nobel Prizes and is one of the only people to be a Nobel laureate in two fields.

Due to extensive research and work with radioactivity, Curie developed aplastic anemia. This is a rare disease where the bone marrow and hematopoietic stem cells are damaged, causing a deficiency in all three blood cell types and replacing them with fat. She was admitted to Sancellemoz, a sanatorium in Haute-Savoie, France and died there in 1934 at the age of 66.

“Nothing in life is to be feared; it is only to be understood.”

 

Fun Facts!

• Her daughter Irene also won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
• Her notes taken and papers written at the time are still radioactive today.
• She kept a sample of radium next to her bed as a night light.
• Marie was the only woman out of 24 members invited to the prestigious Slovary Conference in 1911.
• Albert Einstein wrote Marie an encouraging letter during a tough time with the public after meeting her at the Slovary Conference.
• She wrote her husband’s biography.