Bernard A. Fox: R. Bryan Bell has accepted the roles of executive medical director of Providence Cancer Institute

Bernard A. Fox, Co-Founder, President, and CEO of UbiVac, reshared a post by Providence Cancer Institute on LinkedIn, adding:

“The Earle A. Chiles Research Institute & Providence Cancer Institute remain in great hands with R. Bryan Bell, MD, DDS, FACS, FRCS(Ed) taking over the helm as Walter Urba, our fearless leader, friend, and colleague of 30+ years enters retirement. I know the Institute is in fantastic hands as I have worked closely with the amazing and dedicated Dr. Bell for the last 15 years.

I have seen his drive and persistence to find innovative treatments that improve outcomes and the potential for cure of more patients. Dr. Bell was always an “excellent fit” with our non-siloed translational – Bench-to-bedside – cancer immunotherapy department.

He firmly believes and strongly supports the path Dr. Urba blazed, and will continue to buttress immunotherapy options, alone or in combination with standard therapies, to increase the chance to Finish Cancer. “

Quoting Providence Cancer Institute‘s post:

“We are excited to announce that R. Bryan Bell, MD, DDS, FACS, FRCS(Ed) has accepted the roles of executive medical director of Providence Cancer Institute and director of the Earle A. Chiles Research Institute, a division of Providence Cancer Institute. Our current leader Walter J. Urba, M.D., Ph.D., announced in August that he would retire at the end of the year.

“I am deeply honored to succeed Dr. Urba,” said Dr. Bell. “He built a world class cancer research program and led the global trial of ipilimumab, the first immunotherapy to show an improvement in overall survival for metastatic melanoma, a disease that was almost uniformly fatal. Because of his vision and Providence’s research team, Oregonians often had access to this and other lifesaving immunotherapies years before they were widely available.”

Dr. Bell is a head and neck surgical oncologist, researcher and educator. He has been with Providence Cancer Institute since 2009. He founded the Providence Head and Neck Cancer Program and Clinic and assembled a multidisciplinary team to advance care through translational research and early phase clinical trials.

Under his leadership Providence experienced significant growth of its clinical footprint. Dr. Bell has overseen a fourfold increase in the number of surgical oncologists. Ten clinics have been added on four different hospital campuses for breast, thoracic, head and neck and hepatobiliary surgical oncology, as well as gynecologic oncology. Also, he led the opening of Oregon’s first and only oral oncology clinic.

Dr. Bell will begin serving in his new roles this fall and will work closely with Dr. Urba throughout the transition. He will lead our oncology services and research teams, who care for more than 9,000 cancer patients each year across 32 clinics and eight hospitals in Oregon.

Congratulations Dr. Bell!

Click here to read more about it.”

Bernard A. Fox is the Co-Founder, President, and CEO of UbiVac. He is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, at the Knight Cancer Institute. He is also a Member of Board of Directors at Oregon Bioscience Association.In 2012, Dr. Fox received the Harder Family Endowed Chair for Cancer Research in recognition of his efforts in translational cancer therapy.