Centre of protontherapy Institut Curie is a

medical Medicine is the science and Praxis (process), practice of caring for patients, managing the Medical diagnosis, diagnosis, prognosis, Preventive medicine, prevention, therapy, treatment, Palliative care, palliation of their injury or disease, ...

, biological and

biophysical Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that applies approaches and methods traditionally used in physics to study biological phenomena. Biophysics covers all scales of biological organization, from molecular to organismic and populations. B ...

research centre in France. It is a private non-profit foundation operating a

research Research is creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge. It involves the collection, organization, and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness to ...

center on

biophysics Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that applies approaches and methods traditionally used in physics to study biological phenomena. Biophysics covers all scales of biological organization, from molecular to organismic and populations ...

cell biology Cell biology (also cellular biology or cytology) is a branch of biology that studies the structure, function, and behavior of cells. All living organisms are made of cells. A cell is the basic unit of life that is responsible for the living an ...

and

oncology Oncology is a branch of medicine that deals with the study, treatment, diagnosis, and prevention of cancer. A medical professional who practices oncology is an ''oncologist''. The name's Etymology, etymological origin is the Greek word ὄγ ...

and a

hospital A hospital is a healthcare institution providing patient treatment with specialized Medical Science, health science and auxiliary healthcare staff and medical equipment. The best-known type of hospital is the general hospital, which typically ...

specialized in treatment of

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving Cell growth#Disorders, abnormal cell growth with the potential to Invasion (cancer), invade or Metastasis, spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Po ...

. It is located in

Paris, France Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

. Institut Curie is member of EU-LIFE, an alliance of leading life sciences research centres in Europe.

Research

The institute now operates several research units in cooperation with national research institutions

CNRS The French National Centre for Scientific Research (, , CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,637 staff, including 11,137 tenured researchers, 13,415 eng ...

and

INSERM The (Inserm, ) is the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research. History and organisation Inserm was created in 1964 as a successor to the French National Institute of Health. Inserm is the only public research institution ...

. There are several hundred research staff at the institute. ''Institut Curie'' does not offer undergraduate degrees, but awards

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

s and employs many postdoctoral students alongside its permanent staff. Institut Curie is a constituent college (associate member) of University PSL.

Hospital

''Institut Curie'' runs the ''Hôpital Claudius Régaud'', a hospital specializing in cancer. The institute also operates the

proton therapy In medicine, proton therapy, or proton radiotherapy, is a type of particle therapy that uses a beam of protons to irradiate diseased tissue, most often to treat cancer. The chief advantage of proton therapy over other types of external beam ...

center at

Orsay Orsay () is a Communes of France, commune in the Essonne Departments of France, department in Île-de-France in northern France. It is located in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France, from the Kilometre Zero, centre of Paris. A fortifie ...

, one of the few such facilities in the world.

History

The Institut du Radium, a giant laboratory for

Marie Skłodowska–Curie Maria Salomea Skłodowska-Curie (; ; 7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934), known simply as Marie Curie ( ; ), was a Polish and naturalised-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was List of female ...

, was founded in 1909 by the

University of Paris The University of Paris (), known Metonymy, metonymically as the Sorbonne (), was the leading university in Paris, France, from 1150 to 1970, except for 1793–1806 during the French Revolution. Emerging around 1150 as a corporation associated wit ...

and

Institut Pasteur The Pasteur Institute (, ) is a French non-profit private foundation dedicated to the study of biology, micro-organisms, diseases, and vaccines. It is named after Louis Pasteur, who invented pasteurization and vaccines for anthrax and rabies. T ...

. The Institut du Radium had two sections. The Curie laboratory, directed by Maria Skłodowska-Curie, was dedicated to physics and chemistry research. The Pasteur laboratory, directed by Claudius Regaud, was studying the biological and medical effects of

radioactivity Radioactive decay (also known as nuclear decay, radioactivity, radioactive disintegration, or nuclear disintegration) is the process by which an unstable atomic nucleus loses energy by radiation. A material containing unstable nuclei is conside ...

. After receiving a joint Nobel Prize with her husband Pierre in 1903, Maria Skłodowska-Curie won a second Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1911. During World War One, Skłodowska-Curie used it to teach nurses about

radiology Radiology ( ) is the medical specialty that uses medical imaging to diagnose diseases and guide treatment within the bodies of humans and other animals. It began with radiography (which is why its name has a root referring to radiation), but tod ...

. Maria Skłodowska-Curie and Claudius Regaud established the Foundation Curie in 1920, a public interest institution. The Foundation's purpose was to fund the Institut du Radium's activities and contribute to the development of its therapeutic component. A first hospital opened in 1922. At the clinic, Regaud and his team developed innovative treatments combining surgery and

radiation therapy Radiation therapy or radiotherapy (RT, RTx, or XRT) is a therapy, treatment using ionizing radiation, generally provided as part of treatment of cancer, cancer therapy to either kill or control the growth of malignancy, malignant cell (biology), ...

to treat cancer. The Curie Foundation became a model for cancer centers around the world. Curie laboratory continued to play an important role in physics and chemistry research. In 1934, Skłodowska-Curie's daughter Irène and her son-in-law

Frédéric Joliot-Curie Jean Frédéric Joliot-Curie (; ; 19 March 1900 – 14 August 1958) was a French chemist and physicist who received the 1935 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with his wife, Irène Joliot-Curie, for their discovery of induced radioactivity. They were t ...

discovered

artificial radioactivity Induced radioactivity, also called artificial radioactivity or man-made radioactivity, is the process of using radiation to make a previously stable material Radioactive decay, radioactive. The husband-and-wife team of Irène Joliot-Curie and Fré ...

. In 1935, it was recognized with a Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The Institut du Radium and the Fondation Curie merged in 1970. It became Institut Curie. The Institut has three missions: research, teaching and treating cancer. The original building of Curies Laboratory from 1914 now houses the Musée Curie.

Nobel Laureates and female scientists mentorship

Six Nobel prizes laureates (and four Nobel prizes) are attached to the Institute's researchers. * Maria Skłodowska-Curie, Physics, 1903 - thus becoming the first ever woman awarded the Nobel Prize *Maria Skłodowska-Curie. Chemistry, 1911 - thus becoming the only person in the world, women or men, awarded two Nobel Prizes in two different sciences (Peace prize excluded), originally the first person and, to this day, the first and only woman with two Nobel Prizes cf. Statistics on the Nobel Prize *

Pierre Curie Pierre Curie ( ; ; 15 May 1859 – 19 April 1906) was a French physicist, Radiochemistry, radiochemist, and a pioneer in crystallography, magnetism, piezoelectricity, and radioactivity. He shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics with his wife, ...

, Physics, 1903 - thus becoming the first married couple to receive the Nobel Prize *

Irène Joliot-Curie Irène Joliot-Curie (; ; 12 September 1897 – 17 March 1956) was a French chemist and physicist who received the 1935 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with her husband, Frédéric Joliot-Curie, for their discovery of induced radioactivity. They were ...

, Chemistry, 1935 - thus becoming the only mother-daughter and sole father-daughter pairs in the world to have received a Nobel Prize to this day *

, Chemistry, 1935 - thus making of the Curie Institute the only research center in the world with two wife-and-husband researching couples awarded with the Nobel Prize *

Pierre-Gilles de Gennes Pierre-Gilles de Gennes (; 24 October 1932 – 18 May 2007) was a French physicist and the Nobel Prize laureate in physics in 1991. Education and early life He was born in Paris, France, and was home-schooled to the age of 12. By the age of ...

, Physics, 1991 43% of all scientific women Nobel prize laureates from France (three prizes out of seven received by French women in "hard" sciences and Economy) to this day received them for research conducted at Institut Curie or its ancestor the Radium Institute. If Economy - a social science - is excluded, 50% i.e 3 Nobel Prizes out of 6 received by French scientific women are affiliated to the Curie Institute. Hence why it is considered that, based on internationally recognised prizes garnered by its researchers, no other research center in the world has hosted that many pioneering women scientists. Moreover, Curie mentored upwards of 45 scientific women from all over the world including

Marguerite Perey Marguerite Catherine Perey (19 October 1909 – 13 May 1975) was a French physicist and a student of Marie Curie. In 1939, Perey discovered the element francium by purifying samples of lanthanum that contained actinium. In 1962, she was the fi ...

, discoverer of

francium Francium is a chemical element; it has symbol Fr and atomic number 87. It is extremely radioactive; its most stable isotope, francium-223 (originally called '' actinium K'' after the natural decay chain in which it appears), has a half-l ...

- five-time nominee for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, and Jeanne Ferrier, discoverer of

autoradiography An autoradiograph is an image on an X-ray film or nuclear emulsion produced by the pattern of decay emissions (e.g., beta particles or gamma rays) from a distribution of a radioactive substance. Alternatively, the autoradiograph is also availab ...

, amongst many other peers: Sonia Cotelle, Harriet Brooks, Alice Leigh-Smith, Eva Ramstedt, Lucie Blanquies, Suzanne Veil, Catherine Chamié, Alicja Dorabialska,

Ellen Gleditsch Ellen Gleditsch (29 December 1879 – 5 June 1968) was a Norwegian radiochemist and Norway's second female professor. Starting her career as an assistant to Marie Curie, she became a pioneer in radiochemistry, establishing the half-life of radi ...

, Marthe Weiss, Antonia Elisabeth Korvezee, May Sybil Leslie,

Ștefania Mărăcineanu Ștefania Mărăcineanu (; June 18, 1882 – August 15, 1944) was a Romanian physicist. She worked with Marie Curie and studied the element named for Curie's homeland Polonium. She made proposals that later lead to Irène Joliot-Curie's Nobel Priz ...

, Branca Edmée Marques, Eliane Montel, Elizabeth Rona, Jadwiga Szmidt,

Margarete von Wrangell Margarethe Mathilde von Wrangell, after 1928 Princess Andronikow, ''née'' Baroness von Wrangell (7 January 1877 in Moscow – 21 March 1932 in Hohenheim) was a Baltic German agricultural chemist and the first female full professor at a Ger ...

, Renée Galabert, Isabelle Archinard, and last but not least, Curie's secretary of over 30 years: Léonie Razet. The Radium Institute also pioneered mobile

radiography Radiography is an imaging technology, imaging technique using X-rays, gamma rays, or similar ionizing radiation and non-ionizing radiation to view the internal form of an object. Applications of radiography include medical ("diagnostic" radiog ...

during

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

where upwards of 150 proto-nurses ( nursing diploma in France only in 1922) and radiology pioneers where trained and even more post-war.

Famous alumni

* Maria Skłodowska-Curie * Claudius Regaud *

* Jeanne Ferrier *

Raymond Grégoire Raymond Grégoire (31 December 1905 – 24 March 1960) was a French teacher and research physicist. He was a PhD student of Marie Curie and made his career at the Curie Laboratory (now preserved as the Curie Museum) in Paris from 1927 to 1960. ...

Notes

External links

Official site of Institut Curie

Institut Curie's history (official website)

Curie Museum's Website
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