Russell Vance grew up in Canada where he attended Queen's University for his undergraduate (Biochemistry) and Master's (Philosophy of Science) degrees. He obtained his PhD in Immunology from the University of California, Berkeley, under the mentorship of David Raulet. His postdoctoral work was with John Mekalanos and William Dietrich at Harvard Medical School. Since establishing his lab at UC Berkeley in 2006, Vance has been interested in identifying the molecular mechanisms underlying innate immune recognition of bacterial pathogens. His lab is known primarily for its studies of inflammasomes and the discovery that cyclic-di-nucleotides are direct agonists of STING. Since 2013, Vance has been an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and in 2026, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.