Barry Marshall

Barry James Marshall (born 30 September 1951) is an Australian physician, Nobel Prize Laureate in Physiology or Medicine, Professor of Clinical Microbiology and Co-Director of the Marshall Centre at the University of Western Australia. Marshall and Robin Warren showed that the bacterium ''Helicobacter pylori'' (''H. pylori'') plays a major role in causing many peptic ulcers, challenging decades of medical doctrine holding that ulcers were caused primarily by stress, spicy foods, and too much acid. This discovery has allowed for a breakthrough in understanding a causative link between ''Helicobacter pylori'' infection and stomach cancer.

Education and early life

Marshall was born in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia and lived in Kalgoorlie and Carnarvon until moving to Perth at the age of eight. His father held various jobs, and his mother was a nurse. He is the eldest of four siblings. He attended Newman College for his secondary education and the University of Western Australia School of Medicine, where he received a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) in 1974. He married his wife Adrienne in 1972 and has four children.

Career and research

In 1979, Marshall was appointed Registrar in Medicine at the Royal Perth Hospital. He met Dr. Robin Warren, a pathologist interested in gastritis, during internal medicine fellowship training at Royal Perth Hospital in 1981. Together, they both studied the presence of spiral bacteria in association with gastritis. In 1982, they performed the initial culture of ''H. pylori'' and developed their hypothesis on the bacterial cause of peptic ulcers and gastric cancer. It has been claimed that the ''H. pylori'' theory was ridiculed by established scientists and doctors, who did not believe that any bacteria could live in the acidic environment of the stomach. Marshall was quoted as saying in 1998 that "everyone was against me, but I knew I was right." On the other hand, it has also been argued that medical researchers showed a proper degree of scientific scepticism until the ''H. pylori'' hypothesis could be supported by evidence.

In 1982 Marshall and Warren obtained funding for one year of research. The first 30 out of 100 samples showed no support for their hypothesis. However, it was discovered that the lab technicians had been throwing out the cultures after two days. This was standard practice for throat swabs where other organisms in the mouth rendered cultures unusable after two days. Due to other hospital work, the lab technicians did not have time to immediately throw out the 31st test on the second day, and so it stayed from Thursday through to the following Monday. In that sample, they discovered the presence of ''H. pylori''. They later found out that ''H. pylori'' grow more slowly than two days, and the stomach cultures were not contaminated by other organisms.Seeing What Others Don't, chapter 4, by Gary Klein

In 1983 they submitted their findings thus far to the Gastroenterological Society of Australia, but the reviewers turned their paper down, rating it in the bottom 10% of those they received that year.

After failed attempts to infect piglets in 1984, Sam Wang reported that Marshall, after having a baseline endoscopy done, drank a broth containing cultured ''H. pylori'', expecting to develop, perhaps years later, an ulcer. He was surprised when, only three days later, he developed vague nausea and halitosis, due to the achlorhydria. There was no acid to kill bacteria in the stomach and their waste products manifested as bad breath, noticed by his wife. On days 5–8, he developed achlorhydric (no acid) vomiting. On day eight, he had a repeat endoscopy, which showed massive inflammation (gastritis), and a biopsy from which ''H. pylori'' was cultured, showing it had colonised his stomach. On the fourteenth day after ingestion, a third endoscopy was done, and Marshall began to take antibiotics. Marshall did not develop antibodies to ''H. pylori'', suggesting that innate immunity can sometimes eradicate acute ''H. pylori'' infection. Marshall's illness and recovery, based on a culture of organisms extracted from a patient, fulfilled Koch's postulates