Richard Axel
| Richard Axel | |
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Richard Axel in 2014
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| Born |
July 2, 1946 Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA |
| Residence | USA |
| Citizenship | United States |
| Fields | Neuroscience |
| Institutions | Columbia University |
| Alma mater | |
| Notable students | |
| Notable awards |
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| Spouse | Cornelia Bargmann |
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Website www |
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Richard Axel (born July 2, 1946) is a molecular biologist and University Professor in the Department of Neuroscience at Columbia University and investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His work on the olfactory system won him and Linda Buck, a former postdoctoral research scientist in his group, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2004.
Born in New York City, New York, Axel graduated from Stuyvesant High School in 1963, received his A.B. in 1967 from Columbia University, and his M.D. in 1971 from Johns Hopkins University. He returned to Columbia later that year and became a full professor in 1978.
During the late 1970s, Axel, along with microbiologist Saul J. Silverstein and geneticist Michael H. Wigler, discovered a technique of cotransformation, a process which allows foreign DNA to be inserted into a host cell to produce certain proteins.Patents, now colloquially referred to as the "Axel patents", covering this technique were filed for February 1980 and were issued in August 1983. As a fundamental process in recombinant DNA research as performed at pharmaceutical and biotech companies, this patent proved quite lucrative for Columbia University, earning it almost $100 million a year at one time, and a top spot on the list of top universities by licensing revenue. The Axel patents expired in August 2000.
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