FIRST the ridicule. Then an amazing act of self-sacrifice that led to one of the great scientific discoveries. And now a Nobel prize.
That鈥檚 the short version of key events in the careers of Australian pathologists Barry Marshall and Robin Warren, following Monday鈥檚 announcement that they will share the Nobel prize for physiology or medicine for proving that bacteria can cause stomach ulcers.
鈥淭o prove his critics wrong, Marshall infected himself and duly developed an ulcer鈥�
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Marshall and Warren鈥檚 hypothesis was scoffed at in 1982 when Warren announced that he had found previously unknown Helicobacter pylori bacteria in biopsies from people with a stomach ulcer. Such bugs couldn鈥檛 possibly survive in the highly acidic environment of the stomach, critics said.
To prove them wrong, Marshall infected himself with H. pylori in 1985 and duly developed gut inflammation 鈥� which he promptly cured with antibiotics. The researchers, then based at the Royal Perth Hospital in Australia, went on to prove that other people鈥檚 stomach ulcers also healed once the H. pylori bacteria had been killed.
Doctors used to treat the symptoms of ulcers with drugs to lower stomach acidity. Now, they are commonly cured. 鈥淭heir results led to the recognition that gastric disorders are infectious diseases, and overturned the view that they were physiological illnesses,鈥� said Bob May, president of the UK Royal Society.
