Emma Lurie's Adopt a Microbe Blog.

A cute blog called Adopt a Microbe by Emma Lurie features bacteria as cuddly little cartoons. This one, is heliobacter pylori, or H. pylori, the cause of gastrointestinal ulcers in A LOT of people.

Hello there.
You can call me H. pylori.
I am a helical Gram Negative rod.
I live in the mucous layer of the stomach.

I am famous for causing duodenal and gastric ulcers by making the stomach secrete lots of acid.
I am also a risk factor to some gastric cancers.

More than half the people in the world have me.
In 2005 two scientists from Perth, Western Australia – Robin Warren and Barry Marshall – were given a Nobel prize for their work with me.
Marshall even drank a dish full of me to give himself stomach ulcers and prove their theories.
Before that, everyone thought stomach ulcers were caused by stress!

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