Bell serves on the Genentech Board in San Francisco, and formerly served on the scientific advisory board of AstraZeneca (1997–2000). He was the founding director of three biotechnology companies, including Oxagen, Avidex, and Powderject and is also on the Board of Atopix. His charity positions include chairing the board of trustees of the Oxford Health Alliance and the science committee of the UK Biobank. He chairs the Global Health Scientific advisory board of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, he is a Trustee of the Rhodes Trust, he sits on the award jury of the Gairdner Foundation, he is a non-executive member of Genomics England, and he is a member of Cancer Research UK. He has advised governments and foundations in Singapore, France, Canada, Sweden, Finland, and Alberta on biomedical research. He is on the Jenner Institute Board and the Gray Institute Board. He is on the advisory Board for the McGill Genomics Institute and the Montreal Neurological Institute, and chairs the advisory board for the Oak Foundation and the Robertson Foundation. He attended the 2013 Bilderberg Group conference. Bell's research has identified genes involved in susceptibility to diabetes mellitus type 1 and rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis. His work has been important in elucidating the interactions on the surface of the T cell involved in immune activation. He has also worked on the biomedical applications of high-throughput genomic technologies, including structural genomics and ENU mutagenesis. He has been directly involved in applying genetics in a clinical settings and helped developed the 100,000 genome project in England. Bell was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci) in 1998. He was awarded an honorary D.Sc. degree by the University of Alberta in 2003. Bell was President of the Academy of Medical Sciences from 2006 to 2011. In 2008, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS). He was appointed an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (HonFREng) in 2009,  and was knighted for services to medicine in the New Year Honours of that year. He has received honorary degrees from the Universities of York, Warwick, Glasgow, Dundee, Imperial College and University of Toronto (2014). He was appointed Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire (GBE) in the 2015 New Year Honours for services to medicine, medical research and the life science industry. In addition to Sir Charles Gordon and Sir Edward Beatty, he is one of the few Canadians to be admitted to the highest class in this order.