David W. Russell received a B.A. degree in biology from UT Austin in 1975 and a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of North Carolina in 1980. He was a Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation post doctoral fellow from 1980-1982 with the Nobel laureate Michael Smith (Chemistry, 1993) at the University of British Columbia. He joined the faculty at UT Southwestern in 1982, was promoted to professor in 1990, and received the McDermott Distinguished Chair of Molecular Genetics in 1992.

Dr. Russell's research interests are in cholesterol metabolism, in particular the enzymatic pathways that dispose of cholesterol. His laboratory has isolated over a dozen genes that encode enzymes involved in cholesterol breakdown, and has identified the molecular bases of six human genetic diseases characterized by abnormal cholesterol metabolism. Dr. Russell and Dr. Joseph Sambrook are the authors of the best selling molecular biology cloning manual entitled "Molecular Cloning", published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press. Dr. Russell is the recipient of a research career development award from the National Institutes of Health, the Katz Award from the American Heart Association, the Kilby Science Place Award from Texas Instruments, the Oppenheimer Award from the Endocrine Society, the Windaus Prize from the Falck Foundation, and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2006.

Dr. Russell teaches introductory and advanced courses in biochemistry and molecular biology to medical and graduate students and is a member of numerous administrative committees at the medical school. He has served on the editorial boards of Biochemistry, Journal of Lipid Research, Annual Reviews of Biochemistry, Journal of Biological Chemistry, and Molecular Endocrinology. He currently serves on the editorial boards of Cell Metabolism, Trends in Biochemical Sciences, and as an Associate Editor for the Journal of Biological Chemistry. He reviews research grant applications and programs for the US National Institutes of Health and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and is a consultant to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.