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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 2d: Pierre and Marie Skłodowska Curie | After Pierre

In Parts 2a, 2b, and 2c of this series (SCC Quarterly | Q1, Q2, and Q3 2019), we introduced you to
Pierre Curie and Maria Skłodowska Curie. Their dramatic story concludes here in Part 2d …

W hen we left off in Part 2c, the lives Marie, her children, Pierre’s father and brother, and the Curies’ friends and
colleagues had been shattered when the Curies’ extraordinary partnership came to a sudden and tragic end
with the death of Pierre on 19 April 1906. In a simple, private ceremony attended only by his family and a few
close friends, Pierre was interred beside his mother in the Curie family’s plot in Sceaux on the outskirts of Paris,
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where he grew up.

Marie was despondent by this devasting loss, but she refused to allow this to derail their work. Pierre’s brother,
Jacques, had informed Marie that the French government intended to support her and her daughters (Irène and
Ève) with a state pension. Insisting that she was quite capable of supporting herself and her children, she refused
to entertain any notions that she would become a ward of the state, and she returned to her work and research the
day after the funeral , later explaining why:
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“Crushed by the blow, I did not feel able to face the future. I could not forget, however,
what my husband used to say, that even deprived of him, I ought to continue my work.”

As a tribute to Pierre, Marie vowed to devote the rest of her life to completing the work they had started together.
Her goal was to create a world-class laboratory (the laboratory they had only been able to dream of) in Pierre’s
honor.

But first, she first needed to prepare for life without Pierre.

SCC Quarterly | Volume 5 • Issue 4 | Laboratory Leaders