Russell is a Managing Director of Prospect Venture Partners. Russell co-founded Prospect Venture Partners II and III, as dedicated life science funds with over $1 billion in capital under management. Prior to establishing Prospect Venture Partners II and III, Russell was a member of the Health Care Technology Group at Mayfield. He joined Mayfield in 1992, served as a Venture Partner from 1993 to 1994 and as a General Partner from 1995-2000. Russell played a key role in Mayfield's investment activities in the biotechnology and medical device sectors. As an Associate, he participated actively in the incubation of Millennium Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Takeda) and as a General Partner he was responsible for the incubation of Intuitive Surgical Devices (NASDAQ:ISRG).

Prior to Mayfield, Russell was at the University of California San Francisco from 1984-1992 where he was engaged in biomedical research. His work, published in a variety of respected journals, focused on important aspects of hepatitis B viral replication. His descriptions of the reverse transcription and packaging functions of polymerase gene products merited publication in Nature.

Russell serves or has served on the Board of Directors of Intuitive Surgical (NASDAQ: ISRG), Hansen Medical (NASDAQ: HNSN), Opus Medical (NASDAQ: ARTC), Orquest (NASDAQ: JNJ), AVEO Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: AVEO), Visiogen (NYSE: ABT acquired), Baxano, DFine, SentreHEART, NinePoint Medical, Portola Pharmaceuticals and several other privately-held companies. Russell served as the Vice Chairman of the BOD of Interplast and on the Genetics Advisory Council of the Harvard Medical School-Partners Healthcare Center for Genetics and Genomics.

Russell holds an M.D. and Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of California, San Francisco and a B.A. in Chemistry from the University of Chicago.