Rate My Professor Richard Axel

Richard Axel is University Professor at Columbia University and Professor of Pathology and Biochemistry at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. He obtained an A.B. from Columbia University in 1967 and an M.D. from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1971. He returned to Columbia in 1971 and was appointed Professor of Pathology and Biochemistry in 1978. He has served as Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute since 1984 and as Principal Investigator at Columbia’s Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute. Axel is also Professor of Neuroscience at the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons.

His early research developed gene transfer techniques that enabled the introduction of genes into cells and facilitated the production of clinically important proteins, including work on the CD4 receptor for HIV. He later applied molecular biology to neuroscience, focusing on the sense of smell. His laboratory identified more than one thousand odorant receptors and elucidated how olfactory information is organized and represented in the brain, research that earned him the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, shared with Linda B. Buck. Current work examines how odor recognition is translated into internal representations that guide behavior. Axel has received additional honors including the Gairdner International Award in 2003 and election as a Foreign Member of the Royal Society in 2014. He stepped down as co-director of the Zuckerman Institute in 2026 to focus on research and teaching.