Anticlimax Department. (March 24, 2006)

    Australian Academy of Science - Media release SCIENCE ACADEMY ELECTS NEW MEMBERS

Next to the bottom of the alphabetical list of Fellows elected this year to the Australian Academy of Science --

Dr Robin Warren FRCPA Nobel Laureate
Formerly Senior Pathologist, Royal Perth Hospital, WA
Speciality: Clinical pathology.

Robin Warren is distinguished for the discovery of Helicobacter pylori, the bacterium that causes a range of gastric disorders, including peptic ulcers, gastritis and gastric cancer. Persisting in the face of scepticism and setbacks he and Barry Marshall demonstrated how H. pylori was able to survive in stomach acid. Their research has resulted in effective treatments for a variety of gastric ailments, sparing thousands of people world-wide a lifetime of pain and distress.

Then of course Harvard waited until the well-founded rumour got around that Fritz Lipmann (elected a member of the US National Academy of Sciences in 1945) was on the short list for a Nobel Prize before promoting him from Research Associate to Professor. He got his chair in 1949; the Prize "for his discovery of co-enzyme A and its importance for intermediary metabolism" came in 1953.

At least Harvard got in first.

Note: Barry Marshall, Warren's co-winner, was elected to the Academy in 1999.