Heroes and Cultural Identity Project

SCE Heroes - Dr Barry Marshall and Dr Robin Warren

BUSTING THE STOMACH BUGS

MARSHALL AND WARREN

by Dorota Rzetelska

Imagine that you are a scientist, that you have found a cause of a disease that affects millions of people. The proof is in your laboratory. The results of your research are undeniable. What would you think, how much time would it take others to accept your findings?

In the case of Dr. Barry Marshall and Dr. Robin Warren, it took more than 20 years for their discovery to be recognized. The two Australian scientists turned medical dogma on its head. They claimed that ulcers were not caused by stress, but by the bacterium Helicobacter pylori. What was so unusual about their findings?

They ascertained that Helicobacter pylori can live in the human stomach. Nobody knew that this was possible. Conventional thinking was that no bacterium can survive within the stomach because of its very high acidic pH. At that time (early eighties), doctors believed that the main causes of gastritis and stomach ulcers were stress and lifestyle.

Dr. Barry Marshall was determined to reveal the truth. In July 1984 he drank a germ-laden liquid himself containing the bacterium Helicobacter pylori and become ill, proving that a healthy person could be infected by bacterium. This experiment helped establish Marshall and Warren's controversial idea within the scientific and medical community.

Dr. Barry Marshall said:"The idea of stress…was just so entrenched, nobody could really believe that it was bacteria. It had to come from some weird place like Perth, Western Australia, because I think nobody else would have even considered it".

So, why have I chosen Dr. Barry Marshall and Dr. Robin Warren as my scientific heroes? I admire their determination, perseverance in the face of skepticism, and also their remarkable achievements. I respect their faith in the importance of their research, and the fact they never gave up, or resigned themselves to failure. Thanks to their research, peptic ulcer disease can be cured by a short regime of antibiotics and prevented from becoming a chronic, frequently disabling condition.

In 2005, 25 years after their discovery, the two researchers were awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology, finally recognizing their invaluable research.

Dorota Rzetelska is a science student following a one year university access course in biological sciences.