Post by What is Biotechnology?

Richard Axel was born in New York City, USA, 2 July 1946. Axel is a neuroscientist who shared the 2004 Nobel Prize for Medicine for his findings relating to the olefactory system. In 1991 he and Linda Buck worked out the process for how nearly 1000 genes code for oderant sensors located in the back of the nasal cavity. Each receptor, they showed, is a protein that changes whenever an oderant gets attached to the receptor. This reaction causes an electrical signal to be sent to the brain. Axel is the son of Polish immigrants who escaped to New York when the Nazis invaded their homeland.