Rate My Professor Bruce Russell

Professor Bruce Russell serves as Dean of the School of Pharmacy and Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Otago. He earned his BPharm(Hons) from the University of Otago School of Pharmacy and PhD from its Department of Pharmacology. After completing his doctorate, he undertook postdoctoral research at the University of Edinburgh, practicing as a pharmacist there. He subsequently held a Senior Lecturer position at the University of Auckland for about ten years before joining the University of Otago in 2016 from the National University of Singapore. At Otago, he has maintained his pharmacist registration, specializing in mental health, and teaches clinical pharmacy to third- and fourth-year students, as well as courses in cell and molecular biology, human body systems, health microbiology, and medical microbiology and immunology.

Russell's research interests encompass psychopharmacology and parasitology. In psychopharmacology, he examines the pathophysiology of severe mental illnesses including schizophrenia, with emphasis on treatment resistance, biomarkers for drug response prediction, recreational drug effects, and addiction mechanisms. He co-leads the IMAGEOtago research group and employs magnetic resonance imaging to study brain responses. Prominent publications include 'Treatment-resistant schizophrenia: treatment response and resistance in psychosis (TRRIP) working group consensus guidelines on diagnosis and terminology' (2017, American Journal of Psychiatry), 'Glutamatergic neurometabolites in clozapine-responsive and-resistant schizophrenia' (2015, International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology), and 'Association of age, antipsychotic medication, and symptom severity in schizophrenia with proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy brain glutamate level' (2021, JAMA Psychiatry). As a parasitologist, his work targets Plasmodium vivax biology, including drug susceptibility, reticulocyte invasion, and pathobiology using ex vivo methods and P. cynomolgi culture, alongside Cryptosporidium studies relevant to New Zealand. Recent outputs feature 'The biology and pathogenesis of vivax malaria' (2024, Trends in Parasitology) and antiparasitic peptoid research against Cryptosporidium parvum (2025, Microbiology). He presented his Inaugural Professorial Lecture, 'Jungle Fever,' in 2023 on malaria research.