Michelle Moyal, DVM (Host): Hello everyone, and welcome to the Cornell Veterinary Podcast where we deep dive into the discovery, care and learning that happens at Cornell University's College of Veterinary Medicine. I'm hoping by now you know that I'm your fabulous host, Dr. Michelle Moyal, Visiting Assistant Clinical Professor, Purina Veterinarian, and person who just adopted a new dog that, of course has some allergies to food.

So I think it's destiny, myself, working for Purina. But, I digress. Let's move on because I'm very excited to talk to our guest today. Our guest, is Dr. David Russell, the William Kaplan Professor of Infection Biology in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology. It's a lot of words, which is why I am reading people.

He has spent his research career studying the interplay between human immune cells and two major human diseases, and we are not kidding when we say two major human diseases, tuberculosis and HIV. He has also worked to develop new types of drugs to help fight these diseases in novel ways with funding from the NIH, the Gates Foundation and the Mueller Health Foundation.

Welcome to the show, Dr. Russell. How are you?

David Russell, PhD: I'm very well, Michelle. Thanks very much for having me.

Host: I am very excited that you're here and I am sure our guests are very excited to hear because this sounds like some really remarkable research you're doing. Kind of before we get into the research, she says, talking with her hands everywhere; I'm very excited to kind of hear your backstory, like I really like to hear where people come from and a little bit about your path. Namely, was this the path you thought you were going to be on when you were a kid? Like how did this all come about?

David Russell, PhD: Absolutely not. This was not what I imagined as a kid.

Host: That's usually the story. I love this.

David Russell, PhD: So I grew up in Wick, which is a small fishing town in the far north of Scotland. I mean, it's about 10 miles before you fall off the end of Scotland.

Host: Okay. Good to know. Stop at Wick. Don't go further. Got it.

David Russell, PhD: Exactly. Yeah. So my parents always had an interest in nature. My father was interested in birds, I kind of grew up with this within the family. My father's from Shetland, from the Northern Isles, we had lots of relatives in Shetland and Ortby. So my life plan so much as I'd actually thought about one, was to go to St. Andrews University, do marine biology, and then go back up to the islands into fisheries. And that was really what I thought I was going to do.

Host: And where did this plan go awry?

David Russell, PhD: Yeah.

Host: That's a big plan too. Yeah.

David Russell, PhD: Two things that happened. Firstly, I became interested in something I hadn't even thought about before.

Host: I love hearing this.

David Russell, PhD: And that was genetics. So I just became fascinated with genetics and evolution.

Host: When did that, could you just tell our listeners when did that happen?

David Russell, PhD: It happened as an undergraduate, and I would say where it finally came together was I did a parasitology course and I

Host: The vet students at Cornell are very aware of parasitology, very aware.

David Russell, PhD: So I started to put together the classes that I was doing in genetics and the classes I was doing in infection biology, and I started to think about co-evolution between host and pathogen. And I became absolutely fascinated in how two organisms, you know, infection is probably one of the most intimate associations that two organisms can have.

Host: I'll say. That and uninvited guests sometimes, but they, they are growing together. Right.

David Russell, PhD: Exactly. Yeah. And there's major communication over the thousands of years that, that evolves and that impacts the genomes of both organisms. So that was really, how I started this interest.

Host: I love that story.

David Russell, PhD: Then in St. Andrews, I was fortunate that in my final year you got to work in the lab for an entire year, and I absolutely loved that doing bench science. So, I'd hated working in the lab before then. When you did all these practicals where you knew what the answer was going to be before you started.

Host: Yeah. Right. You were just trying to get that exact answer right.

David Russell, PhD: Yes.

Host: I never got that answer. Yeah. Yeah.

David Russell, PhD: Whereas when you actually were allowed to design your own experiments and fail spectacularly, that was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed that.

Host: That's a common theme here. Failing is okay. I talk a lot to our listeners, and I really hope those listeners are like, they have their ear right up to where, okay, maybe you're listening on AirPods and your noise canceling is great, but here's what I want you to listen to. What I want you to hear is that he went in to study something else. Something else piqued his interest and that led him down a path that he did not think he would go down, and everyone who might be like me and didn't think they liked lab, he ended up loving doing research, but it had to be on different terms. So give yourself the chance to try something new. That's what I'm hearing from you.

David Russell, PhD: That was pretty much it. And then in the UK at that time, you didn't apply for programs to do PhDs. You had to apply to an individual person.

Host: Oh.

David Russell, PhD: I then spent the time frantically looking around for somebody in the UK that was working on something I was really interested in.

Host: Sure.

David Russell, PhD: And so then I ended up doing a PhD on malaria, in Imperial College in London.

Host: Wow. So I really appreciate, we talk a lot about mentorship as well, but at that time, your mentor was brought to you by you following your passion. So it's not like you could just find someone in the field and say, Hey, you seem like a great mentor. Would you mentor me? It was a specific person doing what you hoped to pursue. That's tough.

David Russell, PhD: Yeah, so I had to write all these pathetic begging letters to all these people around the UK saying, please, can I come and work in your lab? And then this one worked out very well, and I had a great experience in my PhD. It was a fantastic project. I really enjoyed it.

Host: I see there are similar themes in science, right? I begged via mail as well, but in different ways, hospitals, different programs. So I'm so glad to see it's consistent. That, that's fantastic. And you've, I stalk everyone's websites and lab sites. So I saw that you spent quite a bit of time. We were talking about St. Louis. You were at Washington University. And so what finally brought you, and we'll get back to your study interests, what brought you to Ithaca?

David Russell, PhD: I was at Wash U and I felt I needed a change at really in two aspects. One, I felt the scientific environment within a medical school was a little bit restrictive because you didn't have access to some of the basic sciences, like chemistry, like physics.

Host: Was this a human med? This was a human medical school.

David Russell, PhD: Yeah. Yeah. So I, I really wanted to have more diversity in terms of discipline.

Host: Yep.

David Russell, PhD: And the other one was more a case of, of philosophy and how business was done. The top American medical schools are very egocentric.

Host: What?

David Russell, PhD: Institutions.

Host: Don't come at me, med students. I'm joking. Medical schools in general, I find like all institutions, right? They're very focused on what they're doing, how great they are. This is like, sure.

David Russell, PhD: And so I wanted a more relaxed environment and that's why Cornell really appealed to me, both at the campus level and at the vet med school level, as somewhere that I could work with pleasant interactive colleagues. And it's not in a city. So

Host: Yeah, I mean it's a, yeah, small.

It

David Russell, PhD: was a great transition for me. It really was.

Host: Oh, that's awesome. This is just a note to everyone listening. Again, you know, even if you're working somewhere for years, things could change and maybe it ends up not being the place for you so you can move on and find a place where you would thrive and be reinvigorated. Even though like St. Louis is big on toasted ravioli, so you had to leave the toasted ravioli, but you came here to Ithaca and we have our own unique delicious bites, but.

I love that you said the environment is relaxed. I think many people won't think of a PhD like program or a veterinary program or a work where you're doing research as relaxed. So it's very nice that you were chasing after something that also personally resonated with you that would allow you to do science better.

David Russell, PhD: Yes. I think that's correct. Yeah. It's a really nice family environment. It's a great place to bring up kids, so yeah.

Host: That's awesome. Even with the snow. He said that. I'm very intrigued by that, but sure. So now I mentioned the two rather significant human diseases that you are studying. So I would like to kind of know why each one? So first of all, could you just tell our listeners, because I don't, we don't talk about tuberculosis often.

One, can you tell us what tuberculosis is and why do you study it? Because I think most of us who are listening are like, I don't know, isn't that a thing from a long time ago? Like tuberculosis, not real, just in books. It is real. Everyone, I'm, I'm just

David Russell, PhD: So there, there's two aspects to that question. So, the first one is that what you've just said is an extremely Western view. So

Host: Leave it me

David Russell, PhD: Tuberculosis went anywhere.

Host: Right. Got it. That's important for us to know.

David Russell, PhD: So tuberculosis has been, and still is, the single biggest cause of death by infectious agent, and it's about 1.3 million people a year. Now, it was overtaken briefly by SARS COV2, but now it's back on top again. So it is a major killer, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. And yeah, I get this all the time, that tuberculosis, well, hasn't that gone away?

And it has certainly not gone away. And, with the recent cuts in USAID, who are the main agency distributing anti-TB drugs in Sub-Saharan Africa, you can expect those numbers to grow even more again. Not only are we failing to meet the WHO deadlines in terms of reduction of disease, I think we're now going to go in the wrong direction.

Host: So I want to make sure everyone's listening. I work very hard here to make sure that people understand that this is not necessarily political commentary. This is just what's happening in science and what's happening in the world. We have USAID that was doing a huge, playing a huge part in many diseases around the world, many.

And now without that aid, and we're missing these important deadlines, we have this disease that has a huge death toll annually, and now sadly, we're expecting that death toll to go up.

David Russell, PhD: Yes, unfortunately that's the case.

Host: And that makes me incredibly sad. What is tuberculosis like and what does it do?

David Russell, PhD: So tuberculosis, it's a bacterium. It's actually evolved from soil bacteria, which is rather an interesting aspect of its biology. In terms of the interaction with humans, where did it come from with humans? So, tuberculosis has evolved with mankind, for at least 50,000 years.

Host: Wow.

David Russell, PhD: And when mankind came and emerged out of Africa about 50 to 70,000 years ago, they brought tuberculosis with them. And tuberculosis spread with the human population across the planet. The other thing that's interesting about tuberculosis, is that the human is the only productive host. So you can infect animals with TB, but it's not a productive infection. It'll kill the animal.

Host: Right, won't be spread.

David Russell, PhD: Yes. So the human's required to complete the life cycle.

Host: So human is the preferred host because it could transfer and highly infectious it seems.

David Russell, PhD: Extremely infectious. So one, I mean, the infectious dose is estimated to be one bacterium. So the deficiency of survival of the bacterium is incredible. The data for that is

Host: Sure, but still a small amount. It doesn't take a lot. Right. So it's, it's very efficient at what it does. It spreads from human to human with a small amount. And does everyone with tuberculosis know they're sick the beginning when they spreading

David Russell, PhD: No, so I would, disease probably only happens in about 10% of infected people.

Host: Whoa.

David Russell, PhD: And you you can live for years with the infection without progressing to disease.

Host: Wow.

David Russell, PhD: Which is actually, I think, part of why it's so successful as a human pathogen, because early in human evolution, we, we existed as isolated pockets of individuals, you know, a hunter gatherer lifestyle.

And so if at any given time, only a small number of people who are infected are sick, then you can maintain the pathogen in the population much more effectively.

So I think this is a phenotype that's been selected for through evolution.

Host: Yeah. Phenotype for our listeners, right? Meaning the specific kind that's quite infectious lives on.

David Russell, PhD: Yes. So it's a characteristic that has been positively rewarded throughout evolution.

Host: Wow. And that's, I really appreciate that because that kind of brings us back to your beginnings where you were like, I'm really intrigued by how people were evolving and then these organisms were evolving, to like live with them, to persist to wow. That's a lot. And over the course of your career, because you, you have been doing this for a little while, um, what have you found about tuberculosis that maybe wasn't known before?

David Russell, PhD: I would say that throughout most of my career, it's been a sort of traditional scientist approach where you're trying to solve problems. And it's not until the last 15 years or so that I started to get more interested in doing something more useful than that.

Host: More useful than tuberculosis research. Got it. Yeah.

David Russell, PhD: Well it was more translational.

Host: Got it. Okay. Okay. He has amended that. Yes.

David Russell, PhD: Yeah, I'll start with the basic science and then I'll move on to the more translational stuff. But the basic science, we started off really fascinated by the interplay between the bacterium and its host cell because for most of the life cycle of the infection, the bacterium lives inside a host cell and the host cell that it lives inside is a macrophage.

And that name actually comes from Greek and it means big eater.

Host: That's my kind of cell everyone. I tend to think of the macrophage as Pac-Man, to be quite honest. If anybody's listening and you still know what Pac-Man is, feel free to comment and make me feel younger. But right. It's eating up these infectious cells. Sometimes it's actually even helping to repair damaged cells by taking them away, right, in the body.

David Russell, PhD: That's absolutely right. And for most bacteria, the macrophage is really, really good at killing them. I mean, a macrophage will kill 99.9% of all known household germs.

Host: Wow.

David Russell, PhD: So it's a really good cell at protecting our bodies, but because of its function, because it eats things, of course it's going to encounter bacteria capable of surviving like mycobacterium tuberculosis is.

And so that's where mtb hangs out inside the macrophage for most of its lifecycle. And initially we were interested in studying how the bacteria modulates the cell, how it stops itself from being killed, how it's able to persist inside the macrophage. So that was the emphasis of the work that we did initially in the area.

Host: Yeah, so modulating meaning it moves in and how it makes itself at home, make sure it doesn't die, things like that. And then it progressed to,

David Russell, PhD: So then the next thing was, well, what's the bacteria eating? And so we were interested in the nutrients that the bacteria was obtaining and where it was getting them from. And unusually mycobacterium tuberculosis lives on cholesterol and fatty acids. This is actually a throwback to its life in the soil.

So mycobacterium tuberculosis is one of the few bacteria that's capable of degrading cholesterol. So to break down cholesterol requires a huge number of genes.

Host: Yeah.

David Russell, PhD: We don't have them, you know, which is part of our problem.

Host: Yes, that's exactly why medications are, are needed for many on this topic.

David Russell, PhD: Yeah. So the bug has actually evolved to use this as a carbon source, and this fuels the growth of the bacterium.

So that was where we started to think, let's try and do something useful. So we, we started to think about drug discovery.

Host: Yeah.

David Russell, PhD: And taking advantage of this biological knowledge that we'd acquired to design better drug discovery programs.

Host: And where did that lead?

David Russell, PhD: Well that led to sort of several, trying to do drug discovery within an academic environment, has challenges that you don't normally come across.

Host: Yes. Challenges are in all capital letters, everyone, just so you all know. Yeah, it's tough. You don't have, yeah. Okay. It's okay.

David Russell, PhD: But, the bottom line was we wanted to develop a screen or a discovery platform that encompassed the biology so that we were sort of interrogating a much richer system, which was technically very demanding. Um. But it worked. So it was set up by Brian VanderVen, who's another faculty member in this department. And he did this, he started this when he was a postdoc in my lab. From that initial screen, we screened about 1.3 million compounds.

Host: Oh.

David Russell, PhD: Against tuberculosis bacterium inside the host cell. So we wanted the host cell environment to basically influence the bacteria biology and then interrogate that system.

Host: Gotcha. So again, exposure to all these different compounds and then see how they react essentially. Wow. And so you found this thing about cholesterol, which is really interesting and we are kind of studying this biology of it. Has it led you to, you know, I'm a clinician and I love to talk about how things work in practice, so.

Is there something about the current treatment that you're like, I don't know if this will ever work based on the biology I study, or the goal will be a medication that does this? Like how do you see this translating into treatments and solutions moving forward?

David Russell, PhD: To start with, we were totally driven by phenotypes, so we wanted compounds that resulted in death of the backterium within that host environment. So we've found compounds and then Brian has subsequently gone on working with a pharmaceutical company Caliber and they've developed drugs. And those drugs are now in human clinical trials at the Gates Medical Research Institute in Boston. So we do have compounds. We do have compounds active against TB and those compounds are now in human clinical trials.

Host: And that took how many years from his initial research? Let's just give everyone a little, little tidbit because I think sometimes, actually a lot of times, sometimes I'm going to admit something about myself. I will doom scroll on social media when people read articles saying things like, shouldn't we have an answer by now?

This should be, I know that, you know, people are withholding medications, or we don't want to treat this disease or get rid of it. But this is far more complicated. Far more complicated. So how long do you think he's been working on this?

David Russell, PhD: I would say from when we first started, seriously, on this, it's about 12 years.

Host: Yeah, 12 years. Okay. I want to make sure not 12 months, not 12 weeks. This is a very lengthy process and some of that is the fact that you end up with more questions when you're trying to answer a question. Something doesn't go the way you think. You need permissions to do certain things. This is a lengthy process, so I appreciate you sharing that because I really want people to truly understand this is not as easy as we think.

And you are here thinking, you know, or discussing a possible treatment for a disease that kills 1.2 million people, right? This is, this is a big deal. So not as easy as we thought. I just want to make sure I drove that point home, everyone, and so that's very cool. So, okay, we tackled tuberculosis and now we have this other rather huge research topic of yours in HIV.

So where did that interest come from? How did that come about?

David Russell, PhD: Yeah, so that was me waking up a little bit more to disease in the real world and I started collaborating with somebody who's become a very close friend of mine that's Dr. Henry Mwandumba in Malawi. And this started when I was asked if I would be his external advisor for his PhD.

So he was an MD doing a PhD in macrophage biology. Um working at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, but he's Malawi and his clinical work is done in Malawi.

Host: Incredible. So he's studying infectious diseases and he wants to bring it home where he's from and you know, Pac-Man is where it's at. So here we are back at the macrophage.

David Russell, PhD: Yep. So I go to Malawi first time in 2000. What I found was at that time there was no free HIV testing. There was no free drugs for HIV and the coincidence of HIV and TB infection was in excess of 90%. And so if somebody comes to the clinic with TB, you are more than 90% sure that they're HIV positive.

Host: Wow.

David Russell, PhD: So the coincidence of infection was just horrendous. It really couldn't be ignored. So I started to get interested in, in HIV, in context of TB infection.

Host: I'm going to ask a question that I wonder if other people are thinking. What came first, right? The chicken or the egg? Was it HIV or was it tuberculosis? Does tuberculosis take advantage of a system that's been depleted?

David Russell, PhD: Yeah, so that's a really cool question actually. Um.

Host: I'm so glad I asked it.

David Russell, PhD: Yeah. And until not so long ago, people assumed that what happened was you caught TB when you were younger, then when you became sexually active, you caught HIV and then HIV progresses to AIDS. And when you become immunocompromised the tuberculosis emerges.

Host: Right.

David Russell, PhD: I think everybody assumed that that was what was happening. And then they started to do studies in South Africa, where they looked at the tuberculosis population, amongst human populations that were actually high, HIV endemnicity, or low HIV endemnicity. And when they looked at the genetic makeup of the bacteria, they found that there were the same bacteria clustering to a much greater extent in the HIV high population than in the HIV low population, which indicated that the acquisition of TB was actually a more recent event. So these genetic studies basically showed that the acquisition of TB in the context of HIV, is probably new in most instances.

Host: And again, then TB is occurring in these areas with higher endemic HIV, so higher levels of HIV. This thing sounds quite smart, evolutionarily speaking.

David Russell, PhD: Yeah, no, it's a really cool story and it wasn't what people expected at all.

Host: Agreed and so we now kind of understand that, what do we do with that information now? Is there, does it change what we do?

David Russell, PhD: I think it changes the way you think about the lung, in the context of HIV infection, and that's what we've really been interested in because you don't really think of the lung when you think of HIV. There are other organs that come to mind first. The question that we were first asked was, where is HIV in the lung?

And the methods weren't there to answer that question immediately. So we had to develop new methods that allowed us to detect the virus at single cell level in the lung. And when we did that, we found that the virus was actually mainly in macrophages and not in lymphocytes. Of course all the biology of infection is really conducted looking at the interface between lymphocytes, your immune cells, and the virus, and how the virus kills your immune cells, and that's why you progress to AIDS. But all of a sudden in the lung, we find that actually the viral genomes are much more abundant in the macrophage population than they are in the lymphocyte population.

Host: Were you looking at the lung because that's where TB is typically. And so you were like, they have this co-infection, so there's gotta be a commonality maybe in the lung and we're missing something. And you looked into that.

David Russell, PhD: That's exactly the thought process that we were following, that the tuberculosis is predominantly a lung infection. That's where you acquire the disease, that's where it will go on to develop to active disease. And so it's really all about the biology of the lung. So we were interested in looking at where HIV was.

Host: Yeah.

David Russell, PhD: In the lung cell population.

Michelle Moyal, DVM (Host): And then when you say, when you're talking about lymphocytes, those are and I saw this on your site and I, pardon me if I am saying things incorrectly, but like there was a focus on CD4 lymphocytes or kind of like these helper immune cells, and they tend to trigger the rest of the immune system to let them know what's going on, that we have to get rid of things. But you didn't find that here. You found more macrophages were involved.

David Russell, PhD: We found virus in the lymphocytes, but the incidence of the viral infection in the lymphocytes was much lower than it was in the macrophages.

Host: Got it.

David Russell, PhD: We think we know why that is now. So,

Host: Tell us, share. Share.

David Russell, PhD: Alright. Okay. If I must.

Host: Tell me briefly. Just gimme a sentence.

David Russell, PhD: Okay. So, when

Host: Sorry everyone. You're falling to my whims. I need to know.

David Russell, PhD: When HIV infects a lymphocyte, it basically triggers a cell death pathway in the lymphocyte. And that's why we get depletion of CD4 cells. That's why we lose the lymphocyte in HIV infection.

Host: Okay.

David Russell, PhD: It turns out when HIV infects macrophages, it actually does the opposite, that the macrophage doesn't die. The macrophage activates a survival pathway, and that survival pathway means the macrophage does not go away.

Host: Yep. But then HIV in it doesn't go away. Correct. Wow. Oh, that is too, that's so tough.

David Russell, PhD: So I think that we made the observation we did because, it's a legacy issue, these macrophages accumulate and they just don't die.

Host: Wow. Well, thank you for briefly explaining that. I just, thank you everyone. I just needed to know, and I want everybody to know that like, if a giggle comes out to me, it's because I cannot believe how frustratingly difficult this must be in the lab or for anyone who researches it. I can't imagine.

 Okay, you mentioned that you have worked with, or at least I understand that you've worked with a lot of international partners, and you mentioned working with that doctor from Malawi. And I know you've worked in South Africa. Could you tell me how these partnerships developed and what do they entail? What does that mean for you in work every day?

David Russell, PhD: The Malawi interaction has been a longstanding interaction. And, I have one Malawi in postdoc in, in my lab now. He's actually the fifth Malawian to come and work in my lab and the other four are all back in Malawi.

Um, in this institute and Henry Mwandumba, who, you know, was my original connection and, a really close friend is now director of the institute in Malawi.

 This has been a long standing interaction between my lab and the group in Malawi. And it comes in part with I really take exception to what is known as scientific tourism, which is where you go into a country, you grab all the samples you want, and then you leave back to Europe or to the US to do your experiments.

So this is not the way we should be interacting with these countries. So what we tend to do is we tend to develop methods and protocols that we transfer to Malawi. And so the experiments are done in Malawi, and then after the experiments are concluded and you need to do sequencing, single cell analysis, et cetera, et cetera, then you ship that over to us here and we do the high tech

molecular analysis here, but the basic experiments are done in Malawi. That's the way we've always interacted. That's why Malawians come to the lab to train, get protocols, go back to Malawi.

Host: I really appreciate that. Just listening. Listen, I'm someone who doesn't do research, but to me it would make sense to do the experience in an environment where the research will be most effective, most beneficial, similar conditions. I don't know, things change. But then you're bringing all of this back to the country where the people are most affected by these diseases.

So I'm very happy to see that they're keeping the bulk of that here, and then we can help them with that through our partnership, through sequencing and more of this high tech stuff.

David Russell, PhD: I think building scientific infrastructure in Africa, I mean, that's something that I take very, very seriously and why I've, I've had, a longstanding interaction. With South Africa, I've tended more to be on scientific advisory boards. I have had active interactions with African Health Research Institute in Durban, and with University of Cape Town.

 So there I've been more actively engaged, but I would say Malawi's always been my priority.

Host: And here's what I love, everyone listening. I'm going to try not to lean the microphone because I'm so excited, this partnership happened when someone reached out and asked him to be an external advisor and then they developed this amazing relationship and now look what came of it. We have four others that are now back in Malawi doing medicine.

So you just don't know what networking and relationship building will do. It's incredible.

David Russell, PhD: Yeah, but there's a sad end.

Host: Oh no.

David Russell, PhD: Yeah. So it's the current administration and the National Institutes of Health have cut all the overseas subcontracts.

Host: So what does that mean for us? Like for your lab, for people coming here? What does that mean?

David Russell, PhD: Well, it means that all the money that supported the research in Malawi has just been cut.

Host: Gone?

David Russell, PhD: Just withdrawn.

Host: Gosh, I'm so sad to hear that.

David Russell, PhD: So, yeah, so we're working frantically to find alternative routes to support the lab over there.

Host: I'm going to ask you a question. It's not on my list of questions people, he didn't see this, but I'm going to ask because I think that this is important. If someone is out there listening, and I hope they are, and I hope they're listening with an open mind says to you, why should that be important to me? I'm in the US. Can you tell them why?

David Russell, PhD: Because, you know, all these diseases do occur in the US and in Africa you've got a lot more of them. So there's a lot more HIV, a lot more tuberculosis, a lot more of pretty much every infectious disease around. And with the African countries, we have partners who are willing to work with us to develop a much better understanding of these infectious diseases. And that improved understanding helps us here as well as helps them there.

Host: Yep.

David Russell, PhD: This relationship, this trust has essentially been thrown out the window, by halting USAID and by halting support for scientific research in areas like Sub-Saharan Africa.

Host: Yeah, I think we're just talking about helping humanity everyone and things that happen overseas do happen here. And we want everyone to be healthy, and we would love to help all of these people and all of these populations with these very detrimental and sometimes devastating diseases. So I really appreciate you sharing that because I, I think it's important for us to highlight.

David Russell, PhD: Well, I think it's important to realize that it helps us as well.

Host: Agreed.

David Russell, PhD: You know, our HIV programs have been tremendously enriched by the ability to work on high endemic areas of HIV. So the drugs that we have here that are much better than the ones we used to have, have predominantly gone through human clinical trials in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Host: Right.

David Russell, PhD: So you pull that away, you're pulling away a resource for the people in this country as well.

Host: Exactly. Everyone reaps the benefits of research in this space and I think we're failing to recognize that. So I very much appreciate that answer. You know, you've had this long career and this I think very successful career. It's very neat to see how what you've studied in your lab has translated to affecting, really impacting lives.

Is there something you're most proud of? Like, is there a moment, is there a study? Is there something that you're like, this, this is why I did this?

David Russell, PhD: I mean, I would say my career has given me a great deal feel of pleasure. I've got a hell of a lot out of it, personally. I've had amazing opportunities to interact with extremely clever creative people. I've felt I've never stopped learning, which I've thoroughly enjoyed. But I would say, looking back, the thing that that's given me the greatest satisfaction, are the success of the people who trained in the lab.

Host: I love hearing that.

David Russell, PhD: So, since I've been at Cornell, I've trained 19 scientists who now run their own research programs, many of them in tuberculosis, and this includes institute directors, department chairs, et cetera. So, I'm most proud of how effective this lab has been as a training environment for independent scientists.

Host: That is just wonderful and brings me so much joy. It's part of the reason I came to Cornell initially just teaching and, and having even students reach out years later about something I taught them in surgery. It could be something small. Right, now I am not everyone comparing that to the impact of all of these scientists doing great things in different, in different places, but it has that impact on me.

And so I love that the things you do every day have this beautiful like effect where they trickle out all over the world and many countries and it's helping people and helping the world. So thank you for that. I very much appreciate that answer.

David Russell, PhD: Oh, believe me, I've had big payback on it so I, yeah.

Host: That's fantastic. So, okay, we've talked a lot about some really intense topics and again, they were very important and I'm so happy to hear about how passionate you are still about those you train and about the things you do. So for those listening, and I'd like to think I have a wide variety of people listening, young and older, all sorts of students.

Maybe they're not in school right now and they're just trying to work, but they, they dream of being a scientist. What advice would you give our next generation of scientists or even someone interested in research in general?

David Russell, PhD: Yeah, it's certainly the opportunities are a bit compromised at the moment, and I hope that that's a transient situation. I hope we move beyond that. I would say that research science is very much a vocation rather than a career. It's something you have to care about passionately, in order to be successful. Planning your career, I think you want to look for mentors who show that they care about their trainees and have a record of training. That's difficult if you're looking at young faculty members. I think evaluating their commitment to training and mentoring is important.

If you're a postdoc, then you want to look for mentors who will allow you to take a project with you. And who will work with you to write grants before you go, because if you can get people funded while they're in your lab, they're more competitive when they're out there in the job market. So again, look for people who are willing to support your career.

Host: Yeah.

David Russell, PhD: That they're not just interested in their own career.

Host: I'm hearing great things and we've talked about mentorship here because it means a lot to me. So, one, we're looking at mentors who do, in fact, really I'd love to think everyone really cares about what they do. We know that sometimes it can be tough on the day to day, but they're just as passionate as you are about what you want to study and what they're studying, and they really are invested in helping you grow and be successful.

David Russell, PhD: Yeah, I think that's really important to try to assess that when you're looking around for somebody to teach you.

Host: Sure. What about someone in high school? Can they do anything? Should they be thinking about anything right now?

David Russell, PhD: I mean

Host: Maybe just cleaning your room. Clean your room. Your mom told me to tell you that.

David Russell, PhD: I mean, you can get in labs through different science programs in high from high school. So some institutes do reach out to high school level students with interest. You know, because all of the stuff we do is biosafety level three. I can't really let a student run around with a syringe with HIV in it or anything.

Host: Yes, that is a very valid response. But what I want everyone to hear is, yeah, maybe you don't know of an opportunity in your school, but that doesn't mean opportunities are not out there to help your interest flourish. So if you're interested, seek out opportunities because some places will even have high school students and that is very exciting. Well, that's awesome.

David Russell, PhD: The NIH used to have a high school program for summer program, I honestly don't know what the state of that is.

Host: Yeah, and listen and things might be tough, but I don't want people to get too dissuaded. Just follow your passion. Still follow your path. I think that there's something out there for everyone, even though it may not be exactly what you thought it was going to be, or maybe the number of positions won't be the same for, for right now.

Hold steady, hold strong. We need to understand that again, we're helping humanity, we're helping scientists, we're helping people, we're helping I, we're helping everyone. We're just helping everyone. So that being said, I heard, and by heard, I mean it is written down that you are a talented, is this what wildlife photographer?

David Russell, PhD: Yeah. Yeah. Well I'm an enthusiastic wildlife photographer.

Host: I think that is, that's the same, that's the same as talented. Just being enthusiastic. I love that. How did you get into that?

David Russell, PhD: Part of that was growing up and just doing nature walks with parents, et cetera. And then my father used to do black and white photography as a hobby, so I basically learned how to develop and print my own photographs.

Host: Yeah.

David Russell, PhD: I, I did that quite a long time. And then it was a matter of waiting until digital equipment became good enough and affordable enough for me to do bird photography because unfortunately, it requires relatively high end equipment.

Host: Yes.

David Russell, PhD: Which is not cheap. So.

Host: But PS everyone listening, back in the day as veterinarians, we also had to develop our own x-rays. And I remember being in a dark room, no light, just dipping films in and trying to get the process right. So along with evolution of diseases, there is evolution, right, of technology and we are very lucky to experience that.

Now, I do not have a background in, well, hiking in nature because I'm from Queens, New York and there's some nature out there. People I'm, but I did not experience it and being a photographer, but, now as an older individual, I will tell you that I absolutely am obsessed with birds. I don't know how this happened.

I think it's inevitable. Social media tells me that as we age, we suddenly love birds. And I have to tell you, I think that that's right.

David Russell, PhD: I love going out, taking photographs of birds and I, whenever I'm traveling, I normally tag on at least one or two days or a specific safari or something like that.

Host: Yeah.

David Russell, PhD: So I can take off and do bird photography.

Host: I have. All right. I'm going to share things with our listeners. I got a bunch of those bird houses with cameras and I could watch live or I could take photos of the birds as they're like snacking. So welcome to middle age everyone. You will end liking birds and older. Just wanted to let you know. Is there anything that I didn't ask or we didn't discuss that you would love for our listeners to know?

David Russell, PhD: I don't think so. You've been very thorough Michelle.

Host: He said I'm that good everyone. You heard it here. Well, I appreciate that. In that case, I'm going to ask one more question, and if you don't, if you don't mind me taking your time with this. When you're at a party, you're very relaxed. You don't have to go to the lab the next day. You're like chatting with people, maybe you're having cake, maybe you're having a drink.

It's what, to each their own. Is there a story you'd like to share about what you do with everyone? Is there like a fun story? I don't know how, but like can it, is there a fun story there?

David Russell, PhD: Oh.

Host: You're like, you know, you were in another country. And, well, if it's me in another country, foodborne illness is usually an issue. You're welcome everyone. I can share that at a party if you like, but is there a, is there a story or an anecdote you'd like to share?

David Russell, PhD: I mean, I've had so many fun experiences in so many different places and, you know, come across so many people who have been kind and generous and looked after me and helped me in so many environments. I just feel that traveling round the world has been a tremendous life affirming experience for me.

So I don't think I want to pick on any specific instance, but I, I really just enjoy being out there and experiencing life in different places around the world.

Host: Yeah.

David Russell, PhD: And if, if you can throw in some birds and a camera, then I'm, I'm a hundred percent happy.

Host: Got it. Now we know his dream vacation. Agreed. I appreciate your honesty on that. What I would say to everyone, if you are fortunate and have the opportunity to travel, travel doesn't always mean you have to go halfway around the world. Sometimes it's just going to a different state if you have the ability and just experiencing what they have to offer.

Sometimes it's going to a different neighborhood. I'm from New York City, I said Queens, and I have to tell you something. The Bronx and Staten Island and Manhattan are very different beasts. So maybe just explore everyone. We're just going to take a nod from Dr. Russell and we're going to just, we're just going to explore and then it helps us to learn things about other people and it also helps us to learn about ourself.

 Dr. Russell, I thank you so much for coming on and sharing all of the things that you do and study and who you are. It has been a pleasure to talk to you.

David Russell, PhD: I've really enjoyed it. Michelle. Thanks very much. You do a great job.

Host: Thanks. Oh, he gave me another shout out. Yes. For everyone listening, thank you so much for joining us. We are recording this prior to the holidays, and no matter where you are for the holidays, if you're with family, blood, or chosen, if you're with your pets, if you're alone, please know that we hope you enjoy your time.

If you don't have time and you have to work, thank you so much for doing what you do. Uh, thank you for being here with us for this time and for listening to the Cornell Veterinary Podcast. Please like and subscribe if you're enjoying this on your favorite platform, and we will talk to you soon. Thank you everyone.

Happy holidays.