She began to work in Lippmanns research laboratory and in 1894 she was placed 2nd in the licence of mathematical science. It was in the spring of this year that she met Pierre Curie. Later that year they married and began a life in science. In their own research into radiation the Curies discovered that pitch-blend which is a mineral that contains uranium is 4 times more radioactive then pure uranium. They thought that this must contain some unknown element. The Curies spent several years in their shed which they used as a laboratory purifying huge amounts of pitch-blend which became increasingly radioactive. By 1902 they had gathered 0.1 gram of the unknown element, which they called radium.
In 1903 the Curies received a Nobel prize for physics. When Pierre was killed in a car crash 3 years later Marie took over as a professor in Paris. She was the first woman to hold such a position. In 1911 Marie was awarded a Nobel prize for chemistry. Marie was the first person to receive two Nobel prizes.
Marie discovered that radium used in small doses became vital to the treatment of cancer. But years of exposure to it damaged Marie's own health, and so she died of a blood cancer called leukaemia in 1934. Scientists will remember Marie all over the world for her contribution to the study of radium.