Australians win Nobel for finding ulcer cause
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Two Australians won the Nobel Prize in medicine Monday for a discovery that defied decades of medical dogma and revolutionized the treatment of ulcers. They showed that bacterial infection—not stress—causes ulcers in the stomach and intestine.
The 1982 discovery by Drs. Barry Marshall and Robin Warren eventually transformed peptic ulcer disease from a chronic, frequently disabling condition to one that can be cured by a short regimen of antibiotics and other medicines, said the Nobel Assembly of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm.
Marshall, 54, and Warren, 68, discovered the bacterium Helicobacter pylori and uncovered its role in causing ulcers and stomach inflammation. The prize, with its $1.3 million check, gives the ultimate validation to an idea that initially drew skepticism and derision.
The Australians’ bacterial theory of ulcers was “very much against prevailing knowledge and dogma,” Staffan Normark, a member of the Nobel Assembly, said in Stockholm. Most doctors believed ulcers came from stress and stomach acid.
To make his case, Marshall even infected himself by swallowing a culture of H. pylori.
Warren, a retired pathologist, said it took a decade for others to accept their findings.
The Nobel prize in chemistry will be awarded Wednesday. Those for literature, peace and economics will follow.
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