| Barry Marshall | |
|---|---|
| Born | 30 September 1951 Kalgoorlie, Western Australia |
| Citizenship | Australian |
| Fields | Medicine: Microbiology |
| Institutions | University of Western Australia University of Virginia[1] |
| Known for | Helicobacter pylori |
| Notable awards | 2005 Nobel Prize in Physiology |
Barry James Marshall, AC, FRS, FAA (born 30 September 1951) is an Australian physician, Nobel Prize laureate in Physiology or Medicine, and Professor of Clinical Microbiology at the University of Western Australia. Marshall is well-known for proving that the bacterium Helicobacter pylori is the cause of most peptic ulcers, reversing decades of medical doctrine which held that ulcers were caused by stress, spicy foods, and too much acid.
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Marshall was born in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia and lived in Kalgoorlie and Carnarvon until moving to Perth at seven. His father held various jobs, and his mother was a nurse. He is the eldest of four siblings. He attended Newman College and the University of Western Australia, where he received a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery in 1975. He married his wife Adrienne in 1972 and has four children.[2][3] [4]
In 1979 Marshall was appointed as a Registrar in Medicine at the Royal Perth Hospital. He met Robin Warren, a pathologist interested in gastritis, during internal medicine fellowship training at Royal Perth Hospital in 1981. Together, the pair studied the presence of spiral bacteria in association with gastritis. The following year (1982), they performed the initial culture of H. pylori and developed their hypothesis related to the bacterial cause of peptic ulcer and gastric cancer.[2] It has been claimed that the H. pylori theory was ridiculed by the establishment scientists and doctors, who did not believe that any bacteria could live in the acidic stomach. Marshall has been quoted as saying in 1998 that "Everyone was against me, but I knew I was right".[5] On the other hand, it has also been argued that medical researchers showed a proper degree of skepticism until the H. pylori hypothesis could be proved.[6] As a footnote, German Researchers early during the century did publish several studies that alluded to a bacterial infection as being the principal cause of stomach ulcers but failed to attract wider interest or demonstrate an acceptable proof.
After failed attempts to infect piglets in 1984, Marshall drank a petri-dish of the bacteria and soon developed gastritis with achlorhydria. Symptoms included vague stomach discomfort, nausea, vomiting and halitosis. On the 14th day of the infection, biopsies of Marshall's stomach did not reveal any bacteria, so spontaneous eradication may have occurred. However, on the insistence of his wife, he did take antibiotics immediately after that endoscopy so there was no way of double-checking the negative result. Interestingly, he did not develop antibodies to H.pylori, suggesting that innate immunity can sometimes eradicate acute H.pylori infection. His illness and recovery, based on a culture of organisms extracted from a patient, fulfilled Koch's postulates for H. pylori and gastritis, but not for peptic ulcer. This experiment was published in 1985 in the Medical Journal of Australia[7] and is among the most cited articles from the journal.[8]
After this work at Fremantle Hospital, Marshall did research at Royal Perth Hospital (1985-86) and at the University of Virginia, USA (1986-Present), before returning to Australia while remaining on the faculty of the University of Virginia.[1] He held a Burnet Fellowship at the University of Western Australia from 1998-2003[9] and continues research related to H. pylori and runs the H.pylori Research Laboratory at UWA.[10]
In 2007 he accepted a part-time appointment at the Pennsylvania State University.[11]
In 2005, the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to Dr. Marshall and his long-time collaborator Dr. Warren "for their discovery of the bacterium Helicobacter pylori and its role in gastritis and peptic ulcer disease".[12]
Marshall also received the Warren Alpert Prize in 1994, the Australian Medical Association Award in 1995, Albert Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research in 1995 and the Gairdner Foundation International Award in 1996, the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize in 1997, the Dr A.H. Heineken Prize for Medicine in 1998, the Florey Medal in 1998, the Buchanan Medal of the Royal Society in 1998, Benjamin Franklin Medal for Life Sciences in 1999, the Keio Medical Science Prize in 2002 and the Australian Centenary Medal in 2003.[13]
He was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia in 2007.[14]
He was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science degree by the University of Oxford in 2009. [15]
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