Our Nobel Laureates

The University of Melbourne celebrates the staff, alumni and associates who have reached the pinnacle of their fields, receiving a Nobel Prize.

Professor Richard Robson (1937-)

Award: 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Awarded for: The development of metal-organic frameworks
Awarded with: Susumu Kitagawa and Omar M. Yaghi

Professor James A. Robinson (1960-)

Award: 2024 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics
Awarded for: Studies of how institutions are formed and affect prosperity
Awarded with: Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson

Professor Elizabeth Blackburn (1948-)

Award: 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
Awarded for: The discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase
Awarded with: Carol Greider and Jack Szostak

Laureate Professor Peter Doherty (1940-)

Award: 1996 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
Awarded for: Discoveries concerning the specificity of the cell mediated immune defence
Awarded with: Rolf Zinkernagel

Laureate Professor Sir James Mirrlees (1936-2018)

Award: 1996 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences
Awarded for: Fundamental contributions to the economic theory of incentives under asymmetric information
Awarded with: William Vickrey

Professor Bert Sakmann (1942-)

Award: 1991 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
Awarded for: Discoveries concerning the function of single ion channels in cells
Awarded with: Erwin Neher

Sir John Eccles (1903-1997)

Award: 1963 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
Awarded for: Discoveries concerning the ionic mechanisms involved in excitation and inhibition in the peripheral and central portions of the nerve cell membrane
Awarded with: Alan Hodgkin and Andrew Huxley

Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet (1899-1985)

Award: 1960 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
Awarded for: The discovery of acquired immunological tolerance
Awarded with: Peter Medawar

Professor Joshua Lederberg (1925-2008)

Award: 1958 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
Awarded for: Discoveries concerning genetic recombination and the organisation of the genetic material of bacteria
Awarded with: Edward Tatum

Lord Howard Florey (1898-1968)

Award: 1945 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
Awarded for: The discovery of penicillin and its curative effect in various infectious diseases
Awarded with: Sir Alexander Fleming, Ernst B. Chain

Other key Nobel Prize connections at the University of Melbourne

International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN)

Award: 2017 Nobel Peace Prize
Awarded for: Drawing attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

Award: 2007 Nobel Peace Prize
Awarded for: Building up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and laying the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change
Awarded with: Al Gore