Curie Institute (Paris) a hospital specializing in cancer. The Institute also operates the proton therapy center at Orsay, one of the few such facilities in the world. The Institut du Radium, a giant laboratory for Marie Curie, was founded in 1909 by the University of Paris and Institut Pasteur. The Institut du Radium had two sections. The Curie laboratory, directed by Marie Curie, was dedicated to physics and chemistry research. The Pasteur laboratory, directed by Dr. Claudius Regaud, was studying the biological and medical effects of radioactivity. After receiving a joint Nobel Prize with her husband Pierre in 1903, Marie Curie won a
Marie Curie a systematic search for additional substances that emit radiation, and by 1898 she discovered that the element thorium was also radioactive. Pierre Curie was increasingly intrigued by her work. By mid-1898 he was so invested in it that he decided to drop his work on crystals and to join her. She was acutely aware of the importance of promptly publishing her discoveries and thus establishing her priority. Had not Becquerel, two years earlier, presented his discovery to the "Académie des Sciences" the day after he made it, credit for the discovery of radioactivity, and even a Nobel Prize, would instead