Axel Kornerup Hansen graduated in 1985 as DVM from the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University in Copenhagen, Denmark. After two years in a small animal hospital, he became head of laboratories at Møllegaard Breeding Center, today part of Taconic Ltd. In 1993 he became associate director at the Department of Experimental Medicine at the Faculty of Health & Medical Sciences at the University of Copenhagen. In 1996 he was awarded the degree of Dr. Vet. Sci. based upon his thesis on the impact of bacteria in laboratory rats. From 1997 he has been professor in laboratory animal science and welfare at the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural Universi¬ty, which in 2007 became a part of University of Copenhagen. From 2007 to 2022 he was head of the Section of Experimental Animal Models, which was a research and teaching unit dedicated to animal models. In 2000 he together with six others founded the European College of Laboratory Animal Medicine. His research area has primarily been on how microbes have an impact on laboratory animal models for human diseases. He has published 250 peer-reviewed papers, as well as three full textbooks, i.e. ‘The Laboratory Swine’, ‘Handbook of Laboratory Animal Bacteriology’ from CRC Press, and the ESLAV-book ‘Genes and Bugs’ from Springer-Nature. He is chairing the board of the Danish National Centre for the 3Rs and Denmark’s National Committee for Animal Experimentation and Alternatives.