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Professor Barry Marshall - The University of Western Australia's Nobel Prize winner - is currently the most popular living Nobel Laureate, according to the Nobel Foundation.

The Most Popular Laureates list , which is updated monthly and based on the number of visits to Nobel Prize website pages about Laureates, is measured using Google analytics.

Professor Marshall co-won the Nobel Prize for medicine in 2005 and is remembered in particular for the remarkable episode in which he acted as a human guinea pig and swallowed a concoction containing H. pylori to support his research.

As a result of his collaboration with Emeritus Professor Robin Warren, most ulcers can now be cured with antibiotics and the incidence of gastric cancer has been significantly reduced.

Professor Marshall's and Emeritus Professor Warren's work on the bacterial basis for stomach ulcers revolutionised the treatment of gastro-duodenal ulcers, by enabling an antibiotic cure.  Their research made them Australia's ninth and tenth Nobel Prize winners.

They were also the first recipients of a Nobel Prize to be awarded for research undertaken in Western Australia.  In addition to the numerous scientific awards for their work on Helicobacter pylori they have received Australia's highest civilian honour, the Companion of the Order of Australia (AC).

The top 10 most popular Laureates:

• 1. Martin Luther King Junior, Peace Prize 1964
• 2. Barry Marshall, Medicine Prize 2005
• 3. Albert Einstein, Physics Prize 1921
• 4. Malala Yousafzai, Peace Prize 2014
• 5. Patrick Modiano, Literature Prize 2014
• 6. Kailash Satyarthi, Peace Prize 2014
• 7. Marie Curie, Physics Prize 1903
• 8. Niels Bohr, Physics Prize 1922
• 9. Mother Teresa, Peace Prize 1979
• 10. John Steinbeck, Literature Prize 1962

Media references

Kris Laurie (The Office of the Nobel Laureates)  (+61 8) 6488 4658 / (+61 4) 00 940 590
David Stacey (UWA Media Manager)  (+61 8) 6488 3229 / (+61 4) 32 637 716