Rate My Professor Bruce Russell

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.