John Bell

John Bell is Regius Professor of Medicine at the University of Oxford, a position founded by King Henry VIII in 1546. He is chairman of the Office for Strategic Coordination of Health Research, a newly formed body that coordinates the research agendas of the U.K.'s National Health Service and the Medical Research Council and thus serves as a key component of the U.K's plan to combine medical research funding under a single organization. He is also currently president of the Academy of Medical Sciences. In 1991, Bell founded Oxford University’s Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics and has since been a board member of Isis Innovation, Oxford University’s technology transfer company. He is the founding director or founder of a number of spinoff companies, such as Powderject (1993), Oxagen (1997), and Avidex (1999), and is a non-executive member of the board of Roche AG. His scientific work focuses on the immune response and the genetics of autoimmune disease. He has contributed work that defined several of the genes involved in diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis susceptibility.