People

Board of Directors

Dr. Dawn Bell, Pharm.D. is a biopharma executive, former start-up CEO and Board Director with experience at large and mid-sized public pharmaceutical companies, as well as early stage and start-up privately held biotech companies. Her areas of expertise span strategic planning, portfolio prioritization, clinical development, business development, market access and commercialization. Dr. Bell is currently Global Development Head of Strategic Partnerships at Novartis. She is a passionate mentor for seed stage life-sciences start-ups and is energized by working with CEOs and founders in the Creative Destruction Lab (Toronto, Canada) and as an Executive Council member, EIT Health’s Gold Track Program (Munich, Germany).

Previously, Dr. Bell was VP Clinical Development and Medical Affairs and member of the Executive Committee for Novartis Pharma Canada, a $600M USD business where she was responsible for new product planning, clinical development and medical affairs across a broad portfolio. She oversaw launch preparations for 8 new medicines across 5 therapeutic areas (neuroscience, GI/hepatology, cardio-metabolic, ophthalmology and respiratory), and built the gene therapy team that launched Zolgensma and Luxturna. She also Tco-founded the Novartis Biome at Mila (Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms), an innovation accelerator created to foster entrepreneurship in data science and machine learning to improve drug development and health care delivery.

Prior to this, Dr. Bell led the global development team for Entresto at Novartis, a multi-billion dollar heart failure asset. Prior to Novartis, she was CEO and co-founder of Cool-Bio, a privately held, pre-clinical stage biotech company. She served as General Manager of Canyon Pharmaceuticals from 2008-2012, a privately held, clinical-stage rare-disease company. Earlier, she had several roles of increasing responsibility in medical affairs and clinical development at The Medicines Company, where she was part of the early company growth from $400M to >$1B valuation. Prior to joining the industry, Dr. Bell was a tenured Associate Professor at West Virginia University where she had an active clinical practice in the coronary care unit and a funded research program in health economics and outcomes research. She earned a Doctor of Pharmacy degree from the University of Florida, completed residency training at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and returned to Florida as a Genentech Cardiovascular Fellow studying pharmacogenomics in heart failure.

Dr. Dawn Bell

Dr. Tony Brooks

Dr. Walter Dixon is Associate Vice-President (Research and Priority Initiatives), at the University of Alberta. In addition to this role, Dr. Dixon is a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology in the Department of Agricultural, Food and Nutritional Science (AFNS) in the Faculty of Agricultural, Life and Environmental Sciences (ALES). Prior to becoming AVP, he was Associate Dean (Research and Graduate Studies) in ALES from 2012 to 2014, and in the Department of AFNS was Associate Chair (Research) from 2006 to 2008, and then Associate Chair (Graduate Programs) from 2011 to 2012.

Dr. Dixon has earned a reputation for being an effective leader and team player, having built strong relationships through the various corners of the research portfolio and beyond, including the Research Services Office, Research Ethics Office, TEC Edmonton, Postdoctoral Fellows and Academic Visitors Office, Field Research Office, Environmental Health and Safety, Risk Management, and Research Computing (IST). Externally, he has worked collegially with partners in the ministries of Economic Development, Trade and Tourism, and Advanced Education and with agencies such as Alberta Innovates and Alberta Health Services. The other Vice-Presidents, Deans, and Associate/Vice Deans (Research) across the University have all valued and benefitted from Dr. Dixon’s advice.

A graduate of the University of Alberta (BSc [Hon]) and the University of Cambridge (MPhil and PhD [Biochemistry]), Dr. Dixon’s research focuses on reproductive performance in livestock species and the impact of nutrition during gestation on embryo / fetal development, lifetime growth potential (especially muscle growth), and health parameters of the animal. He played a lead role in the establishment and expansion of the Molecular Biology and Biotechnology Centre (now called the Agricultural Genomics and Proteomics Unit) in the Agriculture/Forestry Centre on north campus. Dr. Dixon has also served on the graduate supervisory committees of more than 100 University of Alberta MSc and PhD students.

Throughout his career, Dr. Dixon has served the larger provincial and national research community in a variety of ways. He was on the provincial scientific review committee (Livestock Opportunities) for the Agricultural Funding Consortium for over five years, the Advancing Canadian Agriculture and AgriFood scientific review committee, and the Alberta Action Team for the Canadian Agricultural Adaptation Program. He has also served as both a member and later as chair of the NSERC Scholarships and Fellowships Committee for Life Sciences and Psychology. He currently serves on the Boards of TRIUMF, the Pacific Institute of Mathematical Science. (PIMS), GlycoNet, and the Canadian Mountain Network. He has been an associate editor of the Canadian Journal of Animal Science, as well as a scientific reviewer for numerous other journals.