Darren J. Dixon is Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Oxford. He was born and raised in Scarborough, North Yorkshire and obtained his first degree and D. Phil from the University of Oxford, where he worked with Professor Stephen G. Davies on the first total synthesis of the pseudopeptide antibiotic Moiramide B, and its close relative Andrimid. In 1997 he moved to Cambridge to post-doc with Professor Steven V. Ley CBE, FRS and in 2000 was appointed to the staff of the Department of Chemistry. In September 2004 he took a Senior Lecturership at The University of Manchester and in August 2007 he was promoted to Reader. In October 2008 he moved to his current post at the University of Oxford and holds the Knowles-Williams Tutorial Fellowship in Organic Chemistry at Wadham College and a 5 year EPSRC Leadership Fellowship.