Robert Bruce Russell, DPhil (Oxon)

Dr. Rob Russell is the professor of protein evolution at the University of Heicelberg (part of the Cell Network's Excellenz cluster in the Bioquant Centre) as of 2009. He studied chemistry at Queen's University in Canada (1986-1990) and completed a DPhil in biochemistry at the University of Oxford (1990-1993). He was a post-doctoral researcher at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, London (1994-1997), a senior investigator at SmithKline Beecham Pharmaceuticals in Harlow, UK (1997-2000) and a group leader at EMBL, Heidelberg (2001-2009). Dr. Russell is known for his research on predicting and understanding molecular mechanism in the interactome (molecular interactions in a cell) and has developed several popular computational methods during the past two decades. His group collaborates widely with researchers on a diverse range of subjects in the life sciences, ranging from bacteriology to cancer research. To date, he has published roughly 140 publications, including dozens in the most prestigious journals, such as Nature, Science or Cell.  He has been an academic editor for journals such as FEBS Letters, PLoS Computational Biology and Protein Science and has consulted for a range of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, including Novartis, Cellzome AG and Celera Genomics.