Dr. Richard Axel at Le Bernardin Prive in New York, July 26, 2017.
Craig Barritt Getty Images
Nobel Prize-winning scientist Dr. Richard Axel has announced that he is stepping down as co-director of Columbia University’s Zuckerman Institute for Mind, Brain, and Behavior due to his high-profile relationship with notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“My past relationship with Jeffrey Epstein was a serious error in judgment, and I deeply regret it,” Axel, 79, said in a statement Tuesday.
“I apologize for hurting the trust of my friends, students, and colleagues,” Axel said in a statement.
“I recognize the problems this has caused and will work to restore this trust. The revelations about Epstein’s horrific actions and the harm he caused to so many people have made my interaction with him even more painful and intolerable.”
This photo illustration shows redacted documents from the Epstein Library files released by the Department of Justice in Washington on February 18, 2026.
Brendan Smialowski AFP | Getty Images
Axel has not been charged with any wrongdoing related to his friendship with Epstein, who died by suicide in August 2019, weeks after his arrest on federal child sex trafficking charges.
However, in emails and other documents released by the Justice Department in January, Mr. Axel is said to have communicated with and dined with Mr. Epstein.
Axel has been a professor at Columbia University for 53 years and said he will continue his lab research at the Zuckerman Institute. Axel said in a statement that he is resigning from his post as a fellow at Columbia University’s Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Axel shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2004 with Linda Bach for “the discovery of odor receptors and the organization of the olfactory system,” the prize’s website says.
In a profile of Epstein in New York magazine in December 2007, Axel was quoted as saying of him, “He has the ability to make connections that others can’t make.”
“He is extremely intelligent and inquisitive. He can quickly obtain information to think about a problem or identify a biological problem without having all the data that a scientist would have,” Axel said in the article. “He also has a very short attention span.”
The article, published as Mr. Epstein is awaiting indictment on sex trafficking charges in Florida, notes that Mr. Axel met Mr. Epstein in the “biotech era of the early 1980s.”
Mr. Axel joins a growing list of people who have lost their jobs or been issued subpoenas because of their ties to Mr. Epstein.
Emails and other documents contained in the Justice Department’s Epstein file database show that Axel and Epstein’s friendship continued for years after Epstein served 13 months in prison after pleading guilty in Florida state court to soliciting prostitution from an underage girl.
In its own statement Tuesday, Columbia University said, “The university has seen no evidence that Dr. Axel violated university policy or law. However, Dr. Axel has made clear that given this past relationship and the continuing impact of the release of the Department of Justice files, he feels it is appropriate to relinquish his position as co-director.”
“The university agrees with this decision and values his extraordinary contributions to the university and his dedication to his colleagues, students, and science,” the university said in a statement.
