Barry Marshall

Barry Marshall
Barry Marshall taken in 2008
Born	30 September 1951 (1951-09-30) Kalgoorlie, Western Australia
Citizenship	Australian
Fields	Medicine: Microbiology
Institutions	University of Western Australia University of Virginia
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 showing that the bacterium Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) is the cause of most peptic ulcers, reversing decades of medical doctrine holding that ulcers were caused by stress, spicy foods, and too much acid.

Early years

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 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.

Life and research

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. In 1982, they performed the initial culture of H. pylori and developed their hypothesis related to the bacterial cause of peptic ulcer and gastric cancer. 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 environment of the stomach. Marshall has been quoted as saying in 1998 that "(e)veryone 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 scepticism until the H. pylori hypothesis could be proved. German researchers had published several studies during the early 20th century, positing that bacterial infection was the principal cause of stomach ulcers, but they failed to attract wider interest or demonstrate an acceptable proof.^{[citation needed]}

After failed attempts to infect piglets in 1984, Marshall, after having a baseline endoscopy done, drank a Petri dish 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 only by his mother. On days 5–8 he developed achlorydric (no acid) vomiting. On day eight he had a repeat endoscopy and biopsy which showed massive inflammation (gastritis) and H. Pylori was cultured. On the fourteenth day after ingestion a third endoscopy was done and Marshall began to take antibiotics. This story is related by Barry Marshall himself in his Nobel acceptance lecture Dec. 8, 2005, available for viewing on the Nobel website. Interestingly, 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 for H. pylori and gastritis, but not for peptic ulcer. This experiment was published in 1985 in the Medical Journal of Australia, and is among the most cited articles from the journal.

After his 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. He held a Burnet Fellowship at the University of Western Australia (UWA) from 1998-2003. Marshall continues research related to H. pylori and runs the H. pylori Research Laboratory at UWA.

In 2007, Marshall accepted a part-time appointment at the Pennsylvania State University.

Awards and honors

In 2005, the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to Marshall and Robin Warren, his long-time collaborator, "for their discovery of the bacterium Helicobacter pylori and its role in gastritis and peptic ulcer disease".

Marshall also received the Warren Alpert Prize in 1994; the Australian Medical Association Award and the Albert Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research in 1995; the Gairdner Foundation International Award in 1996; the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize in 1997; the Dr A.H. Heineken Prize for Medicine, the Florey Medal, and the Buchanan Medal of the Royal Society in 1998; the Benjamin Franklin Medal for Life Sciences in 1999; the Keio Medical Science Prize in 2002; and the Australian Centenary Medal in 2003.

Marshall was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia in 2007. He was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science degree by the University of Oxford in 2009.

References

• Marshall BJ, Warren JR. Unidentified curved bacillus on gastric epithelium in active chronic gastritis. Lancet 1983;1(8336):1273-1275. PMID 6134060.
• Marshall BJ, Warren JR. Unidentified curved bacilli in the stomach patients with gastritis and peptic ulceration. Lancet 1984;1(8390):1311-1315. PMID 6145023.
• Sweet, Melissa (2 August 1997). "Smug as a bug". The Sydney Morning Herald. http://www.vianet.net.au/~bjmrshll/features2.html. Retrieved 2007-01-28. 

External links

• Marshall Nobel Prize lecture
• The Helicobacter Foundation Discussion Pages
• The Helicobacter pylori Research Laboratory
• The Helicobacter Foundation
• Marshall's personal web page
• Interview with Barry Marshall - Radio Live, May 2010.
• Interview with Barry Marshall - BBC World Service 6, 7 and 8 November 2010, Interviewer: Owen Bennett-Jones, Programme series: The Interview. Marshall estimates that his discovery saves 500K lives a year. It rendered obsolete a multi-billion dollar drugs market aimed at treating stomach ulcers, as caused by "stress".