"Half of the money goes to Robin and half goes to me," she said with a laugh.

Professor Marshall (54) shared the prestigious $1.7 million award – the first for WA – with colleague and friend, pathologist Dr Robin Warren.

Dr Warren (68) has recently retired after a long career as a pathologist at Royal Perth Hospital where the two men first met when Barry was completing his medical training.

The highest accolade in the scientific and medical world was for their discovery, through work started in the early '80s, that stomach ulcers were caused by bacteria, rather than stress, and could be cured by antibiotics.

This discovery has saved 100,000 million people from the pain and illness of gastritis, ulcers and potential stomach cancer.

It has also saved hundreds of millions of dollars in drug consumption – drugs once taken for life to mask the symptoms but not cure the disease.

Professor Marshall, a gastroenterologist and biotechnology researcher at Sir Charles Gardiner Hospital, was already an international celebrity in the medical world.

But it has taken the ultimate Nobel accolade for the former Kalgoorlie boy to be recognised as a true home-town hero.

With their feet firmly on the ground in their Subi Centro home, Professor and Mrs Marshall joked that some things would not change.

They are relaxed and informal, laugh and joke a lot and send up each others' foibles.

Although he had earmarked some of the prize money for investment in a new biotechnology company, Barry said Adrienne's suggestion had a precedent.

"When Einstein won his first Nobel Prize, he got the glory and his wife got 100% of the money," he said.

Other things that were not likely to change on the domestic front were the breakfast arrangements, they joked.

Adrienne said: "It's not likely that Barry will be getting more cups of tea or breakfast in bed as he doesn't eat breakfast and eats only one meal a day.

"He tends to snack and says if he is just eating and not doing anything else, it is time wasted."

With his scientific hat firmly in place, Barry said: "There's no data to prove we have to eat three meals a day and, with more sedentary lifestyles, it's almost impossible to do so and stay a normal size.

"Every morning for 20 years I've taken Adrienne a cup of tea in bed to help her wake up – which can take some time..."

"And will not change," Adrienne said.

"Barry winning the Nobel Prize has been very hard to take in, but has been wonderful and caused a lot of laughter."

Since downsizing 18 months ago from the big family home in Dalkeith – "big house with large garden and pool" – the couple now enjoy the inner-city lifestyle of Subi Centro and recognise the health benefits of leaving the car in the garage more often.

"Moving here has created another hour each day, and time is the only thing I haven't got," says Barry.

Adrienne said: "You may have noticed Barry's obsession with time."

Travel time to the airport was cut by 15 minutes, time he used to listen to updates on stem-cell research downloaded on to his smart phone, or "lifesaver".

He said: "It was a magic day when I got this – it has palm card, can handle calls, emails, scheduling – and now audio books."

Since learning he had won the Nobel award two days before the POST visit, the phone had rung non-stop and at least 50 invitations to give big lectures "everywhere" had flowed in.

"But I'm very high-tech, so I've got a little bit of confidence I will be able to manage all this Nobel activity," he said.

He said he would consider speaking at events that were in Perth and did not take up a lot of time, as he was launching a biotechnology company aimed at finding commercial uses for the helicobacter technology.

"We hope to eventually make some usable products out of helicobacter because it is such a unique bacterium – it will be a medical treatment of some sort," he said.

"These days, you can sort out the good genes from the bad genes and you can cut out the bad bits and add nice, new bits – and lo and behold, it's a 'newbacter' or something.

"It's kind of a high-tech version of putting leeches on bruises."

A lot of the exciting expansion in science would be in the biotechnology field and come out of research institutes based at the QEII Medical Centre in Nedlands and UWA, he said.

A monorail or elevated tram connecting those centres to each other and Subiaco station would enhance amenity and easily link hospital staff, patients, university students and researchers, he said.

He planned to scale back his clinical work, which was now mainstream, and concentrate on research.

"There are now a few experts around besides me, and people in Australia don't get sick from it (helicobacter pylori infection) because as soon as you say there's something wrong with your stomach, your GP immediately writes out a blood test, may order a breath test and, if you have H. pylori, treats it," he said.

Although this treatment is now routine, it took many years for Barry to convince a disbelieving medical establishment.

Many members simply refused to believe that if ulcers were caused by bacteria, no one else had discovered this.

In the name of research, Barry famously infected himself by swallowing a concoction containing the bacterium and monitored his illness and subsequent recovery.

Adrienne said: "I thought it was an irresponsible thing to do – I was quite convinced the bacteria caused stomach ulcers and knew it could be contagious.

"At the time we had four little kids – the youngest was two.

"He was really ill for about two weeks and continued working.

"He would go in to work in the morning and three or four times would have a gastroscopy (swallowing a camera) to check how he was progressing &emdash; but couldn't have an anaesthetic as he would have to work all day.

"He'd say it was a bit uncomfortable, but he's the master of understatement."

When they can fit it in, Barry and Adrienne escape to their property at Gingin to relax.

He said: "Occasionally, I'm forced into the garden – we just have a few vines up there."

Barry's hobby is electronics, a skill he used to wire up the Gingin property with perimeter security surveillance, which could be accessed remotely.

"I can log on here in Subiaco and check if everything is okay, if the kangaroos are still hopping around," he said.

Adrienne said she learnt Barry had won the award after being reluctantly persuaded to join him and Robin Warren at the Swan Brewery, where the men were dining on Monday night.

It was the fourth time the researchers had been nominated since 2001 – and often around the time the announcements were due they went out for dinner, she said.

"This time I declined the invitation to go, as I was a bit jet-lagged, as we had just returned from a trip to New York a few days earlier.

"I said: 'You guys go'.

"After they got the call to say they had won, Barry called me, but didn't tell me. He just said: 'It's gorgeous down here, come down.'

"I really dragged myself there because I was very tired.

"When I walked in Barry didn't tell me, he was on the phone to the wife of a colleague – he just handed me the phone.

"Our friend was congratulating us – and then I realised what had happened.

"We just laughed – it was the nicest thing. I've never experienced anything like it.

"Then the phones started ringing non-stop.

"I got a bit shaky and we wanted to let our family know before they heard the news."

Their children – Luke (31), Bronwyn (30), Caroline (26) and Jessica (23) – were delighted, and all expecting a trip to Sweden in December for the award presentation, she said.

"Barry is enormously fortunate to have received many awards internationally, but he has never been interested in accolades.

"It's hard to be a hero in your home town."

Barry is well known in the western suburbs: he went to Marist Brothers College and played hockey with a local team.