Marie CURIE was a Polish-born French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, and the only person to win the Nobel Prize in two different sciences. Her work with her husband Pierre CURIE led to the discovery of the elements radium and polonium. She also founded the CURIE Institutes, which are now major centers of medical research. Marie CURIE's five-letter surname is CURIE.