Rod Russell

Dr. Rod Russell is a Professor of Molecular Virology and Viral Immunology within the Division of BioMedical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine at Memorial University in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. He started his independent research program in 2008, but his experience in virology began in 1997 when he started an MSc studying HIV under the supervision of Dr. Michael Grant at Memorial University, followed by a PhD with Drs. Mark Wainberg and Chen Liang at McGill University in Montréal, Québec, Canada. Dr. Russell carried out Postdoctoral training under the supervision of Drs. Suzanne Emerson and Robert Purcell at the NIH, where he switched his focus to the hepatitis C virus.

His research interests cover fundamental virology, including virus assembly, genome packaging and virus entry, as well as viral pathogenesis, immunopathogenesis, virus-host interactions and mechanisms of virus-induced cell death. His team is currently funded by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and the COVID-19 Immunity Task Force. Publications from his trainees have been in journals such as Scientific Reports, Journal of Virology and Virus Research, as well as in Nature Chemical Biology and PNAS with collaborators. He has been an active member of the Canadian and international virology communities in the capacity of Graduate Student, Postdoc, or PI for almost 25 years. He is currently the Vice President of the Canadian Society for Virology and is a member of the Canadian Network on Hepatitis C. Dr. Russell is member of the Editorial Board for the journals Pathogens & Immunity, Frontiers in Microbiology, and Viruses, and he is the Editor-in-Chief of Viral Immunology.