Robin Warren

John Robin Warren, and J. Robin Warren ( born June 11, 1937 in Adelaide, Australia) is an Australian pathologist and Nobel Laureate in Physiology and Medicine in 2005.

Life

After completing his medical studies at the University of Adelaide in 1961 came the first appointments at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia. 1967 Warren moved to Perth, Western Australia, and worked at the Royal Perth Hospital to date.

Robin Warren is married to Win Warren and has six children.

Career

Together with the doctor Barry Marshall, he received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of the stomach bacterium Helicobacter pylori and its role in the elucidation of the formation of gastric ulcers and stomach cancer in December 2005. 1997 both researchers had already gotten awarded the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize. Warren and Marshall identified in biopsies from patients with gastritis (stomach inflammation), a new species of bacteria, which they described as Helicobacter pylori.

Through a self-experiment Marshall was able to prove that not stress and acidity of the stomach are the main reasons for gastritis, peptic ulcers and gastric cancer, but the newly discovered bacterium. Once it was the two researchers have been able to cultivate Helicobacter pylori, Marshall declared himself ready to swallow billions of bacteria. Until that time, it was considered secure school of thought that bacteria could not survive the acidic environment of the stomach. Already after only a week were found in Marshall, the first acute symptoms of gastritis and after a biopsy it was clear that both infection with H. pylori as well as a severe gastritis had developed. Marshall could be cured by treatment with bismuth and antibiotics.

In the aftermath Warren, Marshall and other scientists found that most cases of stomach ulcers and also some cases of stomach cancer on the supposedly harmless bacterium H. pylori is due. At the same time they were able to show that a cure by the administration of antibiotics is possible. They also provided evidence that certain bacteria (fasting pH 1-1.4 ) can survive in the extreme environment of the stomach acid.