Australians Win Nobel in Medicine
Two Scientists Discovered Bacterial Cause of Peptic Ulcers in 1982

By Rob Stein, Washington Post, October 4,

Two Australian scientists won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine yesterday for discovering that a common bacterium -- not stress -- causes most ulcers.

The "remarkable and unexpected" 1982 discovery by J. Robin Warren and Barry J. Marshall, who infected himself to prove their theory, overthrew existing the scientific dogma and opened up a new area of research into whether infectious microbes cause a host of diseases, the Nobel Prize committee said.

"The discovery that one of the most common diseases of mankind, peptic ulcer disease, has a microbial cause has stimulated the search for microbes as possible cause of other chronic inflammatory conditions," wrote the committee, which cited the pair's "tenacity" in the face of deep skepticism.

Warren, 68, and Marshall, 54, learned of their honor while having a drink together in a pub in Perth as part of a tradition they started years ago to make light of whether they would ever win the prize.

"Robin and I often have a beer down by the riverside this time of year," said Marshall, now of the University of Western Australia in Nedlands. "But it's more of a joke. . . . We would always dream about winning the Nobel but never really thought [we would]."

"It's only just starting to sink in," added Warren, now retired, who will share the $1.3 million prize.

Warren was the catalyst for the pair's work. In 1979, while a pathologist at the Royal Perth Hospital in western Australia, he noticed small, curved bacteria in biopsies of the lower part of the stomachs of about half of the patients he examined.

The scientific establishment dismissed Warren's findings, but Marshall, a gastroenterologist, was intrigued. They joined forces three years later and began trying to grow and identify the organism. After many frustrating attempts, Marshall succeeded only when he inadvertently left slides unattended over the Easter holiday in 1982 and returned to find thriving colonies of the microbe, enabling him to identify it as a previously unknown spiral-shaped bacteria, subsequently dubbed Helicobacter pylori . [...more]

The discovery spurred interest in whether other microbes cause diseases that are due to chronic inflammation, such as Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, rheumatoid arthritis and heart disease.

"Even though no definite answers are at hand, recent data clearly suggest that a dysfunction in the recognition of microbial products by the human immune system can result in disease development," the committee wrote. "The discovery of Helicobacter pylori has led to an increased understanding of the connection between chronic infection, inflammation and cancer."

Elias A. Zerhouni, director of the National Institutes of Health, said: "I think this is a perfect example of how excellent science triumphed over conventional dogma. The prize affirms that we must keep true to our scientific principles of exploration, and continually question our assumptions."
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 7:04 pm