Richard Axel

Richard Axel
Axel in 2014
Richard Axel
Born	2 7, 1946
Birthplace	New York City, U.S.
Nationality	American
Occupation	Molecular biologist, neuroscientist, university professor
Title	University Professor; Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Employer	Columbia University
Known for	Discovery of odorant receptors and the organization of the olfactory system
Education	Johns Hopkins University (M.D.); Columbia University (B.A.)
Spouse(s)	Cornelia Bargmann
Awards	Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (2004); Fellow of the Royal Society (2014)
Website	[http://www.axellab.columbia.edu/ Official site]

Richard Axel (born July 2, 1946) is an American molecular biologist and neuroscientist who holds the rank of University Professor in the Department of Neuroscience at Columbia University and serves as an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He is best known for his landmark research on the molecular biology of the olfactory system — work that elucidated how humans and other mammals detect and discriminate among thousands of odors. For this contribution, Axel shared the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Linda B. Buck, a former postdoctoral researcher in his laboratory, who co-authored the seminal 1991 paper identifying the large family of odorant receptor genes. Born and raised in New York City, Axel has spent nearly his entire academic career at Columbia, where he earned his undergraduate degree in 1967 and later joined the faculty. His earlier work on gene transfer — the technique of introducing foreign DNA into mammalian cells, sometimes called cotransformation — proved foundational to the biotechnology industry and generated substantial patent revenue for Columbia University. In February 2026, Axel announced he would step down as co-director of the Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute at Columbia following reporting on his past social relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Early Life

Richard Axel was born on July 2, 1946, in New York City. He grew up in a working-class family in the city. Details about his parents and early childhood have been shared in various interviews and profiles over the decades. As a young man growing up in New York, Axel developed intellectual curiosity that extended well beyond the sciences; he has spoken publicly about his interest in literature, music, and the broader humanities — interests that would persist throughout his career.

Axel attended Stuyvesant High School, one of New York City's specialized public high schools known for its rigorous academic program in mathematics and science. His time at Stuyvesant helped cultivate the analytical skills that would serve him in his later scientific pursues. After completing high school, he enrolled at Columbia College, the undergraduate liberal arts college of Columbia University, where he would earn his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1967. His undergraduate years at Columbia were formative; the university's Core Curriculum exposed him to a broad range of intellectual traditions, and he has credited this broad education with shaping his approach to scientific inquiry. Axel has described the Columbia undergraduate experience as instrumental in fostering a mode of thinking that values questions across disciplines.

The late 1960s were a turbulent period at Columbia, marked by student protests and upheaval. Axel completed his undergraduate degree during this era and went on to pursue medical training, enrolling at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, where he earned his Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) degree. Rather than pursuing a conventional clinical career, Axel was drawn to laboratory research, particularly molecular biology, which was experiencing rapid advances at the time. He returned to Columbia to begin his research career, joining the faculty at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.

Education

Axel received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Columbia College in 1967. He then attended the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where he earned his M.D. Following his medical degree, Axel returned to Columbia University, where he would build his entire academic career. Although trained as a physician, Axel chose to focus on basic research rather than clinical practice. His medical training nonetheless provided him with a deep understanding of human physiology that informed his later work on sensory systems and neural circuits.

Career

Early Research and Gene Transfer Technology

Axel began his independent research career at Columbia University in the early 1970s, initially focusing on the molecular biology of gene expression. His early work centered on understanding how genes are regulated in mammalian cells — a question of fundamental importance to biology and one that required new experimental tools. In this period, Axel and his colleagues, including the geneticist Saul J. Silverstein and the biochemist Michael Wigler, developed a technique for introducing cloned genes into cultured mammalian cells, a process known as cotransformation.

This gene transfer technology, often referred to as the "Axel patents" or the "cotransformation method," allowed scientists to insert specific genes into eukaryotic cells and study their function. The technique proved enormously valuable, not only as a basic research tool but also for the commercial production of proteins through recombinant DNA technology. Pharmaceutical companies used the method to produce therapeutic proteins, including the hormone erythropoietin and tissue plasminogen activator (tPA), which became blockbuster drugs. Columbia University patented the technology, and the resulting licensing revenue — reported to have totaled hundreds of millions of dollars over the life of the patents — became one of the most lucrative patent portfolios in the history of academic research.

The cotransformation patents, which were issued in the early 1980s, gave Columbia a significant financial windfall and underscored the commercial potential of basic molecular biology research. Axel's role in developing this technology established his reputation as a scientist capable of producing work with both intellectual depth and practical impact. However, Axel himself has noted that his primary motivation has always been understanding fundamental biological mechanisms rather than their commercial applications.

Discovery of Odorant Receptors

In the late 1980s, Axel shifted his research focus to the neurobiology of olfaction — the sense of smell. At the time, the molecular mechanisms by which organisms detect odors were poorly understood. It was known that the olfactory epithelium in the nose contained neurons capable of responding to volatile chemical compounds, but the identity of the receptor proteins responsible for detecting these odorants remained elusive. The question of how organisms could discriminate among thousands of distinct odors was one of the major unsolved problems in sensory biology.

Working with Linda B. Buck, then a postdoctoral fellow in his laboratory at Columbia, Axel tackled this problem using the tools of molecular biology. In 1991, Axel and Buck published a landmark paper in the journal Cell that identified a large multigene family encoding odorant receptors in the rat olfactory epithelium. They demonstrated that this gene family comprised approximately 1,000 different genes — representing roughly 3 percent of the mammalian genome — each encoding a distinct seven-transmembrane-domain receptor protein of the G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) superfamily.

The discovery was significant for several reasons. First, it revealed the enormous genetic investment that mammals make in olfaction, reflecting the biological importance of the sense of smell. Second, it provided a molecular framework for understanding odor discrimination: each olfactory neuron expresses only one (or very few) odorant receptor types, and each receptor can bind multiple odorant molecules, while each odorant can activate multiple receptors. This combinatorial coding scheme explained how a limited (though large) number of receptors could encode the perception of a virtually unlimited array of odors.

Mapping the Olfactory System

After the initial discovery of the odorant receptor gene family, Axel and his laboratory at Columbia pursued a series of studies aimed at understanding how olfactory information is organized in the brain. A central question was how the signals generated by odorant receptors in the nose are processed and interpreted by neural circuits to produce the perception of smell.

Axel's group made several important findings in this area. They demonstrated that olfactory sensory neurons expressing the same receptor converge their axons onto specific glomeruli — discrete structures — in the olfactory bulb of the brain. This convergence creates a spatial map of receptor activation in the olfactory bulb, providing a topographic representation of odor identity. The work established that the olfactory system uses a defined anatomical organization to process chemical information, analogous in some respects to the spatial maps found in the visual and auditory systems.

In subsequent studies, Axel and his colleagues investigated how olfactory representations in the brain relate to behavioral responses. Using genetic and optogenetic tools in model organisms, particularly the mouse and the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, the laboratory explored how odor-evoked neural activity is transformed as it progresses from the olfactory bulb to higher brain regions, including the piriform cortex and other areas involved in odor perception, memory, and emotion. Axel's work demonstrated that the representation of odors in higher cortical areas differs fundamentally from the topographic map in the olfactory bulb, suggesting that the brain constructs internal representations of odors through associative rather than purely spatial coding mechanisms.

The use of Drosophila as a model system has been a notable feature of Axel's research program. Fruit flies possess a much simpler olfactory system than mammals — with approximately 60 odorant receptor types compared to roughly 1,000 in mice — yet the organizational principles governing olfaction are remarkably conserved across species. By studying olfaction in both mammals and invertebrates, Axel's laboratory has contributed to the understanding of general principles of neural circuit organization and sensory processing.

Columbia University and the Zuckerman Institute

Throughout his career, Axel has held multiple appointments at Columbia University. He was named a University Professor, the highest academic rank at Columbia, a title held by only a small number of faculty members at any given time. He has served as a professor in the Department of Neuroscience and in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center.

Axel played a leading role in the establishment and development of the Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, a major interdisciplinary research center at Columbia dedicated to understanding the brain. He served as co-director of the institute, which was founded with a $200 million gift from Mortimer Zuckerman and brings together researchers from neuroscience, psychology, and related fields. The Zuckerman Institute, housed in a building that opened on Columbia's Manhattanville campus, has become a prominent center for brain research.

In February 2026, Axel announced that he would step down from his position as co-director of the Zuckerman Institute. The decision followed reporting by the Columbia Daily Spectator that revealed Axel had maintained an 11-year friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, the financier convicted of sex offenses, and that correspondence between the two spanned at least nine years. According to the Spectator, Axel had received multiple invitations to Epstein's private island in 2011. Axel issued a statement apologizing for his relationship with Epstein. Columbia University released a statement acknowledging Axel's decision to step down as co-director. A New York Times investigation in February 2026 further documented how Epstein had used donations and connections to exert influence at Columbia and New York University, including seeking to gain college admission for young women in his circle. As of February 2026, Axel remains a University Professor at Columbia and continues his research activities.

Howard Hughes Medical Institute

In addition to his Columbia appointments, Axel has served as an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), one of the largest private funders of biomedical research in the United States. HHMI investigators receive long-term support for their research programs and are selected through a competitive process that emphasizes scientific creativity and the potential for transformative discoveries. Axel's appointment as an HHMI investigator has provided sustained funding for his laboratory's work on the olfactory system and neural circuits.

Personal Life

Richard Axel is married to Cornelia Bargmann, a neuroscientist who is herself a prominent figure in the field of neural circuits and behavior. Bargmann, who has conducted influential research on the nervous system of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, has held senior positions at The Rockefeller University and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. The couple represents one of the more notable pairings in contemporary American neuroscience.

Axel has spoken publicly about his broad intellectual interests, which extend beyond the laboratory to literature, art, and music. In a 2018 profile published by Columbia College, he described his engagement with multiple disciplines and his view that scientific inquiry benefits from exposure to diverse modes of thought. He has lived in New York City for most of his life and has remained closely associated with Columbia University since his undergraduate days.

Recognition

Richard Axel has received numerous awards and honors in recognition of his contributions to molecular biology and neuroscience. The most prominent of these is the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, which he shared with Linda B. Buck in 2004. The Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute cited their "discoveries of odorant receptors and the organization of the olfactory system."

Axel is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He is also a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

In 2014, Axel was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS), the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences, in recognition of his scientific contributions.

Axel has also been a recipient of the Golden Plate Award of the Academy of Achievement.

He has been featured at the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings, where Nobel Prize winners engage with young scientists from around the world.

Legacy

Richard Axel's contributions to science span two distinct but interconnected areas: gene transfer technology and the neurobiology of olfaction. His development of cotransformation techniques in the late 1970s and early 1980s provided a critical tool for the nascent biotechnology industry and enabled the commercial production of recombinant proteins that have been used to treat millions of patients worldwide. The patents arising from this work generated significant revenue for Columbia University and established a model for how academic institutions could benefit financially from basic research discoveries.

His later work on the olfactory system, carried out over more than three decades, has fundamentally reshaped the understanding of how the brain processes sensory information. The identification of the odorant receptor gene family, published with Linda Buck in 1991, is considered one of the landmark discoveries in modern neuroscience. It opened an entire field of research and provided a molecular entry point into the study of how the brain constructs representations of the external world. The subsequent mapping of olfactory circuits — from receptor neurons to the olfactory bulb and higher cortical areas — has provided insights not only into smell but into general principles of neural coding and perception.

Axel's laboratory has trained numerous scientists who have gone on to establish their own research programs in neuroscience and molecular biology, extending the influence of his work across the field. His collaboration with Buck demonstrated the productivity of combining molecular biological approaches with questions about brain function — an interdisciplinary strategy that has become standard in modern neuroscience. As a University Professor at Columbia and co-founder of the Zuckerman Institute, Axel has also contributed to building institutional infrastructure for brain research.

The revelations in 2026 concerning his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein added a more complex dimension to his public profile, leading to his departure from the Zuckerman Institute's leadership. Nonetheless, his scientific contributions — particularly the discovery of the molecular basis of olfaction — remain central to the field of neuroscience.