Barry Marshall

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Barry James Marshall, FRS FAA (born 30 September 1951 in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia) is an Australian physician, Nobel Prize winner, and Professor of Clinical Microbiology at the University of Western Australia. He is well-known for proving that the bacteria Helicobacter pylori is the cause of most stomach ulcers, reversing decades of medical doctrine which held that ulcers were caused by stress, spicy foods, and too much acid.

1 Life and research
2 Other awards
3 Appearance in infomercial
4 Trivia
5 See also
6 References
7 Quotes
8 External links
9 Notes

[edit] Life and research

Professor Marshall (Medicine and Pharmacology) completed his undergraduate medical degree at UWA in 1974. 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.

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. To force people to pay attention to this theory, Marshall drank a petri-dish of the bacteria and soon developed gastritis. His symptoms disappeared after two weeks, but he took antibiotics to kill the remaining bacteria at the urging of his wife, since halitosis is one of the symptoms of infection. [1] Marshall's illness and recovery, based on a culture of organisms extracted from a patient, partially fulfilled Koch's postulates for H. pylori and gastritis. This experiment was published in 1984 in the Australian Medical Journal and is among the most cited articles from the journal.

After this work at Fremantle Hospital, Marshall did research at the University of Virginia, USA, before returning to Australia in 1997. He held a Burnet Fellowship at the University of Western Australia from 1998-2003 [2].

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". Professor Marshall continues research related to H. pylori and runs a molecular biology lab at UWA.

[edit] Other awards

Albert Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research in 1995
Gairdner Foundation International Award in 1996
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2005
List of additional awards

[edit] Appearance in infomercial

Recently Dr. Marshall, or someone claiming to be him, appeared in an infomercial by Bottom Line Health, promoting The World's Greatest Treasury of Health Secrets, which is not a peer-reviewed book. The man identified as Marshall describes his research and later says "Really you should get out there and buy this book." <ref>The infomercial aired on Comcast Cable Channel 9, the Comcast Network also known as CN9, between 4:30 and 5:00 AM on the morning of October 15, 2006. The man identified as Dr. Marshall first appears at 4:45 - 4:46 AM where he describes his research. At 4:53 AM he makes the quote "Really you should get out there and buy this book." The producer of the program is listed as "It Really Works" Los Angeles, CA and the copyright date is MMV (2005).</ref>

Bottom Line Health claims in the infomercial that no doctor was paid for the inclusion of their research in the book, however the publisher does not specify that Dr. Marshall was not compensated for his appearance in the video program promoting it. Bottom Line Health is not a medical publisher and it has published other material on "natural and alternative cures" making claims that have not been validated by the FDA. It has been the subject of numerous customer complaints. <ref>

[edit] Trivia

When Barry Marshall was twenty-one he was a state yo-yo champion.

[edit] See also

Timeline of peptic ulcer disease and Helicobacter pylori

[edit] References

Marshall BJ. 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.
http://www.vianet.net.au/~bjmrshll/features2.html
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/doubleissue/heroes/marshall.htm