Madame Curie was born in
She shared the Nobel Prize for Physics with Becquerel (another pioneer in the field of radiation),in 1903 and was the first woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize. In 1906 her husband died and she took over as physics professor, the first female professor at the University of Paris.
She studied Radioactivity and its uses in medicine, often using herself as a test subject. Her first studies were conducted into the treatment of neoplasms (cancers), using radioactive isotopes. In 1911 she received a second Nobel Prize, this time in chemistry, and was the first person honored with Nobel Prizes in two different sciences. Since she was unaware of the deleterious effects of radiation exposure, she would work with radioactive substances with no protection; Marie and Pierre had no idea what price they were paying for their research.The damaging effects of ionizing radiation were then not yet known, and much of her work had been carried out in a shed without any safety measures. She had carried test tubes containing radioactive isotopes in her pocket and stored them in her desk drawer, remarking on the pretty blue-green light that the substances gave off in the dark. Due to their levels of radioactivity, her papers from then (and even her cookbook) are considered too dangerous to handle. They are kept in lead-lined boxes; those who wish to consult them must wear protective clothing.
She died in
Thanks to her research we now target cancer cells and destroy them with radiation, most all cancers can be cured with high enough doses of radiation. Research continues in trying to target tumors more specifically, allowing radiation to be more effective against cancer, and in turn decreasing or eliminating side effects.
The Curie (symbol Ci), a unit of radioactivity, is named in her and
The above drawing was done by Dalyn Montgomery, a talented local Philadelphia artist.