Axel Behrens

Axel Behrens

Qualifications and History

  • 1998 PhD in Biology, Institute of Molecular Pathology, Austria
  • 1998 Postdoctoral Fellow, Institute of Molecular Pathology, Austria
  • 1999 Postdoctoral Fellow, Institute of Neuropathology, Switzerland
  • 2001 Established lab at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, UK (in 2002 the Imperial Cancer Research Fund became Cancer Research UK)
  • 2015 Group Leader, the Francis Crick Institute, London, UK

Axel has a long-standing interest in cell signalling pathways that control cell fate. Axel began his scientific career working with Erwin Wagner at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP) in Vienna, Austria. During his PhD and subsequent postdoctoral work in Switzerland with Adriano Aguzzi, he developed animal models of cancer and neurodegeneration.

Building on this expertise in mouse models of human diseases, Axel set up his laboratory at the Cancer Research UK London Research Institute in 2001 (now part of the Francis Crick Institute) and has since focused the scope of investigation on the function of stem cells in tissue homeostasis and cancer and, more recently, in diabetes.