A doctor working at a mid-level rural hospital made an accidental discovery that was dismissed as nonsense by the medical community. Despite this, he stubbornly continued his research, eventually being awarded the Nobel Prize.
In an era when medical research is often conducted in major scientific centers equipped with high-tech tools worth millions of USD, the success story of Robin Warren (68 years old) is indeed a rarity.
This Australian doctor, along with his colleague Barry J. Marshall (54 years old), won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2005 for discovering Helicobacter pylori, a bacterium that causes digestive and stomach ulcers.
Before this discovery, it was widely believed that stomach ulcers were caused by stress and lifestyle factors. As a result, this painful and chronic condition was treated with complex therapies and expensive medications, yet it remained incurable. In some cases, it led to bleeding and perforation of the stomach lining.
Thanks to Robin Warren, humanity now knows that 90% of duodenal ulcers and 80% of stomach ulcers are caused by Helicobacter pylori, which can be effectively treated with inexpensive antibiotics.
Delighted that his wife had a stomach ulcer
Win, who has six children with Mr. Warren, played a crucial role in her husband’s success, as she was the first patient he successfully treated for a stomach ulcer.
In a media interview, Mrs. Win revealed that Mr. Warren was genuinely delighted to learn she had a stomach ulcer. To this day, she still feels a bit resentful, saying, “He should have shown me a little sympathy.” However, Warren was happy simply because he had a patient he believed he could easily treat.
Robin Warren was born on June 11, 1937, in Adelaide, South Australia. After graduating from medical school in his hometown, he moved to work at Royal Perth Hospital, a mid-level facility in Perth, Western Australia. During his 11 years there, he did not attract any attention, except for winning the shooting championship in a local club for four consecutive years.
Then, one day, he accidentally discovered a large number of spiral bacteria in a stomach ulcer patient’s biopsy sample. “It must be a mistake,” other doctors likely thought and promptly forgot the biopsy sample.
Mocked and Ridiculed
The observations made by Warren were entirely contrary to what he had learned. Until the early 1980s, the prevailing theory was that bacteria could not thrive in the stomach. Anyone who claimed otherwise was treated as if they were saying the Earth was flat.
Consequently, Warren faced ridicule and mockery from the medical researchers of the time when he insisted that stomach ulcers were caused by bacteria. Despite everything, he quietly continued his research. Starting in 1982, he gained a valuable ally in the form of young researcher Barry Marshall, who was 14 years his junior.
Without modern equipment, this pair of Australian doctors sometimes conducted their research in a very “hands-on” manner: for instance, Marshall used himself as a test subject by drinking mixtures of stomach solutions containing millions of bacteria to prove that he could develop a stomach ulcer, just like with other infectious diseases.
Eventually, through experiments on volunteers, antibiotic treatments, and pathological studies, they established a link between Helicobacter pylori and digestive and stomach diseases, leading them to gain recognition and several awards in Australia.
Now, Warren and Marshall have also won the Nobel Prize. However, they seem to remain quite “down-to-earth”. Gaeran Lindvall, the secretary of the Nobel Prize in Medicine committee, stated that when he tried to contact the two Australian doctors on Tuesday via mobile phone to inform them of their win, he found out that they were sitting in a pub in Perth… having drinks!
