Columbia Brain Institute co-director, Nobel laureate Richard Axel steps down over Epstein ties

NEW YORK: A prominent molecular biologist and Nobel Prize winner has stepped down from a top post at Columbia University following revelations about his past ties to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Richard Axel, who won the Nobel Prize for his groundbreaking research on how the human brain processes smells, said that he is resigning as co-director of the Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute. Axel said the decision would allow him to focus on his research and teaching.

Richard Axel named in latest DOJ files

Axel is the latest in a growing list of public figures in the United States and Europe to step aside from senior roles after being linked to Epstein in millions of documents released by the Department of Justice.

According to the files, Axel was a longtime contact of Epstein and is mentioned or appears in more than 900 documents, including communications that continued after Epstein’s 2008 conviction.

“My past association with Jeffrey Epstein was a serious error in judgment, which I deeply regret,” Axel said in a statement. “I apologize for compromising the trust of my friends, students, and colleagues.”

He added that revelations about Epstein’s conduct made his association with the financier “all the more painful and inexcusable.”

Columbia backs decision, cites no policy breach

In a separate statement, Columbia University thanked Axel for his decades of service, saying he had not violated university policies or any criminal laws.

“However, Dr Axel made clear that in light of this past association, and the continued fallout from the release of DOJ files, he felt it appropriate to relinquish his position as co-director,” the university said, adding that it agreed with his decision.

Axel, who has been on Columbia’s faculty for more than 50 years, is also stepping down as an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, which said it will continue funding other researchers to complete his ongoing work.

Axel shared the 2004 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Linda B Buck for their 1991 discovery of roughly 1,000 genes that enable humans to detect more than 10,000 distinct odors, research that transformed the understanding of sensory perception.