Ruslan Medzhitov obtained his PhD from Moscow State University in 1993. He became an assistant professor in 1999 at Yale University School of Medicine in the Department of Immunobiology. He is currently a Sterling Professor of Immunobiology at Yale University School of Medicine and an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His research interests include biology of inflammation, mechanisms of disease, innate immunity, infection biology, allergy, cell signaling and gene regulation.  Medzhitov is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Medicine, and European Molecular Biology Organization, a foreign member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and he is a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology.

His awards include William B. Coley Award "For Distinguished Research in Basic and Tumor Immunology", Cancer Research Institute, 2003; Emil von Behring Award, 2004; AAI –BD Biosciences Investigator Award, 2006; Blavatnik Award for Young Scientists, 2007; Howard Taylor Ricketts Award, The University of Chicago, 2008; Lewis S. Rosenstiel Award, Brandeis University, 2010; The Shaw Prize in Life Science and Medicine, 2011; Vilcek Foundation Prize, New York, 2013; Lurie Prize, Chicago, 2013; Else Kröner Fresenius Stiftung Prize, Germany, 2013; Charles W. Bohmfalk Teaching prize, 2015, and the Dickson Prize in Medicine, 2019.