Page 16 - index

Laboratory Leaders

We stand on the shoulders of giants. Most of us take for
granted earlier discoveries that are the foundation of our
work today. In our Q3 2018 edition, we introduced an exploration
of teamwork in the laboratory. The focus of our Laboratory
Leaders feature starting in our Q4 2018 edition and
continuing in the next several issues is Power Teams
in the Laboratory. We’re examining major
discoveries made by scientists who collaborated
with others and were supported by teams
as they conducted their work. For these
“power couples,” teamwork really did make
the dream work, and it continues to pave
the way for others.

Power Teams in the Laboratory

Part 2a: Pierre and Marie Skłodowska Curie | a marriage of minds

“It would be a beautiful thing, a thing I dare not hope, if we could spend our life near each other,
hypnotized by our dreams: your patriotic dream, our humanitarian dream, and our scientific dream.
We can aspire to accomplish something ... every discovery, however small, is a permanent gain.”
~Pierre Curie, in a letter to Maria Skłodowska

W hen it comes to power teams in the laboratory, there is perhaps no other couple more widely known
than Pierre and Marie Curie, who came together through a shared love of science and research.
The Curies spent their marriage working side by side, sharing groundbreaking scientific discoveries.
They are best known for their pioneering work as a team in the study of radioactivity, which led to their
discovery in 1898 of the elements radium and polonium—and their subsequent shared Nobel Prize
in Physics in 1903.

SCC Quarterly | Volume 5 • Issue 1 | Laboratory Leaders