Dean Befus, BSc, MSc, PhD, FCAHS

Area of Study / Keywords

inflammation pulmonary biomarkers stress

About

Dr. Dean Befus is Professor Emeritus, University of Alberta (2017-); BSc, MSc, PhD; postdoctoral fellowship, McMaster University (1975-78). He has been a professor at McMaster (1978-1985), U of Calgary (1985-1992), and U of Alberta (1993-present).

Dean was a visiting scientist at the MRC Research Unit (UK), The Gambia, Africa (1983), Zymogenetics Inc. Seattle, WA (1991-92) and the Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute, Albuquerque, NM (2004-2005). He is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences (2017) and received other scientific awards, including for mentorship.

Dr. Befus held the AstraZeneca Canada Inc., Chair in Asthma Research (1993-2017) and was the founding Director of the Alberta Asthma Centre (1993-2016) and co-director of the Alberta Respiratory Centre (2017-2018). He was a leader in the national network for allergic diseases, AllerGen NCE Inc., and the Canadian Healthy Infant Longitudinal Development Study (CHILD) of asthma, allergies and other chronic immune diseases.

He served extensively in national and international peer-review of grant applications, publications and scientists, and on Editorial Boards for eight international peer-review journals. He was Chair/Co-Chair of the provincial coalition, Alberta Breathes, and is a member of the Respiratory Health Strategic Clinical Network, Alberta Health Services. Dean has broad interests in asthma management, epidemiology and impact; and development, implementation and evaluation of knowledge transfer programs for patients, their families and health care professionals. 

Dean has published over 400 scientific articles in allergy and asthma; novel therapeutics in inflammatory diseases; and the control of inflammation. In 1996 he co-founded Salpep Biotechnology, now Aim Therapeutics Inc. The lead drug has anti-inflammatory activity and has completed phase 1 and phase 2a human trials. Recently he has filed a patent on stress and inflammation, and is working closely with a Canadian diagnostic company.   

Dean is an avid outdoorsman and loves to fly fish (catch and release only) on streams in the Rockies.   

Not recruiting trainees