Richard Axel

Richard Axel is a renowned American scientist who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2004 for discovering how our sense of smell works. He identified the large family of genes responsible for producing the receptors in our noses that detect different odors. His research helped explain how the brain interprets a wide variety of smells, from food aromas to environmental scents. Axel’s work has advanced our understanding of sensory biology and has potential implications for understanding neural development, diseases, and developing artificial sensing systems.