Professor Bruce Neal, Executive Director of The George Institute for Global Health in Australia, has received the inaugural 2025 NHMRC Michael Alpers Global Health Award for his groundbreaking research on potassium-enriched salt.
The award was presented at the NHMRC Research Excellence Awards Dinner in Canberra on 31 March 2026.
It honours the legacy of the late Emeritus Professor Michael Alpers AO CSM FAA FRS, a pioneer whose decades of work in infectious diseases and with communities in Papua New Guinea exemplified scientific excellence and real-world impact.
The award recognises an NHMRC-funded researcher whose work has made a significant contribution to global health.
Prof Neal's research centres on a simple but powerful question: what could be achieved by switching the world's salt supply from regular salt to potassium-enriched salt? Modern diets deliver far too much sodium and far too little potassium, driving elevated blood pressure and increased risks of stroke, heart attack and kidney disease.
Potassium-enriched salt addresses both problems simultaneously by reducing harmful sodium and increasing beneficial potassium intake. The George Institute's landmark NHMRC-funded Salt Substitute and Stroke Study showed that a formulation of 75% sodium chloride and 25% potassium chloride significantly reduced the risks of stroke, major cardiovascular events and premature death, with more than 90% of participants still using the substitute after five years.
"This award is made to me, but it really reflects a huge body of work done by a very large team over a long period of time.
If we can make this switch at scale, it has the potential to prevent literally millions of premature strokes, heart attacks and deaths every year.
By:Professor Neal
The funding will support new trials and multi-sector collaboration to drive policy and industry uptake globally, with a focus on low- and middle-income countries.
Professor Neal holds appointments as Professor of Medicine at UNSW Sydney and Professor of Clinical Epidemiology at Imperial College London.
