Peter J. Russell received his B.Sc. in Biology from University of Sussex in 1968 and his Ph.D. in Genetics from Cornell University in 1972. He then joined the Biology faculty of Reed College in 1972 where he is currently Professor of Biology. Russell teaches an upper-division genetics and molecular biology lecture/laboratory course, the genetics section of the introductory biology course, an advanced seminar course in yeast virology, and advises senior thesis research students. He is also the author of a number of successful genetics textbooks.
He is currently studying the molecular genetics of the replication of double-stranded (ds)RNA viruses found in budding yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The research goals are to define in vivo the cis-acting sequences that are required for viral RNA packaging into capsids and for genome replication, and to identify and characterize any yeast gene products required for virus propagation. His earlier research involved Neurospora rRNA synthesis and the organization of and regulation of the number of ribosomal RNA genes, and nitrogen metabolism in the pathogenic dimorphic yeast Candida albicans.