Marie and Pierre became famous for their discovery. In 1903, they received the Nobel Prize in Physics. Unfortunately, they were both so ill from working with radioactive materials, that they could not accept the prize in person. Radium had made the Curies ill, but doctors soon found that it could make people well, too. Doctors used radium to treat and cure cancer.
Treatment of cancer using radium is called radiotherapy.
Tragedy struck the Curie family in 1906. Pierre was killed in an accident and Marie was devastated. However sad she was, she was more determined than ever to continue her work. Marie became the first woman professor in France and took her husband's place as head of the physics department at the Sorbonne. In 1910, Marie received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her work with radioactivity.