Professor Barry Marshall is a Nobel Prize-winning Australian scientist who proved that peptic ulcers are caused by bacteria, not stress. In 1984, desperate to prove his theory after journal rejections, he acted as a human subject and drank a solution containing the Helicobacter pylori bacteria, giving himself an ulcer. This controversial action earned him criticism but proved his theory correct. His breakthrough discovery led to a revolution in ulcer treatment and the recognition of H. pylori as the main cause of stomach cancer. In 2005, he and his colleague were awarded the Nobel Prize for their discovery. Today, Professor Marshall continues to inspire young minds in science through his lectures and encouragement to follow their passions.

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“I won’t be a moment, I’m just making a sandwich,” said the voice
on the other end of the phone, and on the other side of the country.
Making a sandwich? You’re a Nobel Prize winner. Don’t you, you
know, have people who ‘get lunch’ for you?
West Australian clinical professor, gastroenterologist and Nobel
Laureate, Professor Barry Marshall, is a delight to speak to as he
takes me on a brief journey through what has been labelled the
most significant medical discovery in the history of gastroenterology.
He is as famous for drinking a potentially fatal potion laden with
the bacterium Helicobacter pylori as he is for all the suffering he
prevented through his discoveries.
In 1983, Professor Marshall and fellow scientist, pathologist
Professor Robin Warren, sent the medical world into a spin by
contending the cause of one of the world’s most common diseases
– peptic ulcers – was not stress, but a spiral-shaped bacterium called
Helicobacter pylori.
By 1984 and after several journal rejections, Professor Marshall was
so desperate to prove his point that he acted as his own guinea pig,
swallowing the potentially deadly concoction that would give him
the beginnings of a stomach ulcer. The rather radical ‘Frankenstein’
approach earned him worldwide criticism and delivered much
controversy to his door.
When asked if he would do it again, Professor Marshall said, after
much consideration, “absolutely, yes. I went with my gut and I was
right.
“There have definitely been times when I questioned that moment
in hindsight, but I always come back to the notion that people were
suffering unnecessarily. How many more had to suffer while I waited
for lengthy clinical trial results? I could do something about it then
and there.”
It may have taken a decade and earned him a reputation as an
obscure, scientific rebel, but Professor Marshall started a medical
revolution with his breakthrough and it helped stimulate new research
that has more than proven the link between bacteria and ulcers.
In 1984, the World Health Organisation recognised Helicobacter
pylori as the main cause of stomach cancer and it is the distinguished
gastroenterologists’ discovery that has changed the way peptic
ulcers are treated globally. In 2005, Professor Marshall and Warren’s
work was rewarded with the crowning honour of the Nobel Prize for
Physiology or Medicine, recognising their discovery of the role of
Helicobacter pylori in gastritis and peptic ulcer disease.
That’s a big honour to bestow on one’s shoulders and the question
for Professor Marshall following his Nobel Prize was, ‘what now’?
The answer: reinvest in education. He has made it his mission to
incite young minds into science.
Professor Marshall has made a career on never giving up and it is
that notion he passes onto young students at his guest lectures
and appearances throughout high schools and universities across
Australia and the United States. Encouraging young minds to put
their passions in science, he tells them simply: “Follow your heart,
because if you are interested in something it is you who can be the
expert”.
He said there was much to be learned through his repeated failures
at making the academic world stand up and listen to him about his
initial theory of Helicobacter pylori.
“There are more than 1,000 failures and rejections behind every
great success,” Professor Marshall said. “I keep my rejection letters
as a reminder of that.”
Nobel Prize
winner
inspires
graduates
Professor Barry Marshall AC is a Clinical Professor and
Co-Director of the Marshall Centre for Infectious Diseases
Research and Training, at the University of Western
Australia in Perth. He is famous for drinking bacteria to
prove his research theory and subsequently revolutionise
the management of peptic ulcer disease. The University of
Newcastle presented Professor Marshall with an Honorary
Doctorate of Medicine at the Faculty of Health graduation
ceremony on Friday 5 April 2013.
Professor Barry Marshall and his colleague, Professor Robin Warren,
accept their Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine
Professor Barry Marshall AC receives his Honorary Doctor of Medicine from
the University of Newcastle’s Chancellor, the Hon. John Price AM and the
Vice-Chancellor, Professor Caroline McMillen
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Image courtesy of Frances Andrijich Photographer