Helicobacter pylori and Ulcers
Barry Marshall and Robin Warren cultured a spiral stomach bacterium in 1982 and showed it causes ulcers and raises stomach cancer risk; antibiotics now cure ulcers (Nobel Prize 2005).
Open in the interactive tree →Marshall and Warren first cultured Helicobacter pylori in 1982, from a sample that grew only because the plate was kept longer than usual. Their paper was rejected by a gastroenterology society in 1983 and appeared in The Lancet in June 1983; in 1984 Marshall drank a culture and developed gastritis. Regimens that kill the bacterium cure duodenal ulcers, which had long been blamed on acid and stress, and the WHO's cancer agency classed it as a human carcinogen in 1994. About two thirds of the world's people carry it, and in a trial in Shandong, China, two weeks of antibiotics cut stomach cancer by nearly half over 22 years.
Prerequisites
- Germ Theory1861A bacterium, not stress or acid alone, was shown to be a cause of ulcers.
- Antibiotics1928Antibiotics that kill the bacterium cure the ulcer.
Unlocks
- Vaccines That Prevent Cancer2040s?Treating the bacterium prevents stomach cancer.