Raymond Dixon

{{Short description|British microbiologist}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}

Raymond Alan Dixon FRS (born 1 December 1947) is a British microbiologist at the John Innes Centre,{{Cite web|url=http://www.jic.ac.uk/profile/ray-dixon.asp|title=Professor Ray Dixon|date=27 November 2018}} Norwich, specialising on the molecular understanding of biological nitrogen fixation in bacteria. He was educated at the University of Reading (BSc, 1969) and the University of Sussex (DPhil, 1972).{{Cite web |title=ORCID |url=https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6348-639X |access-date=2023-06-29 |website=orcid.org}}

In 1972, Dixon produced the first engineered nitrogen fixing organism by transferring nitrogen fixation genes from Klebsilla pneumoniae to Escherichia coli through conjugation.{{Cite journal |last1=Dixon |first1=R. A. |last2=Postgate |first2=J. R. |date=May 1972 |title=Genetic Transfer of Nitrogen Fixation from Klebsiella pneumoniae to Escherichia coli |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/237102a0 |journal=Nature |language=en |volume=237 |issue=5350 |pages=102–103 |doi=10.1038/237102a0 |pmid=4555442 |bibcode=1972Natur.237..102D |issn=1476-4687}} From 1975, Dixon continued his research at the Nitrogen Fixation Laboratory, which merged with the John Innes Institute and the Cambridge Laboratory to form the John Innes Centre in 1995.{{Cite web |title=The history of plant science and microbial science at JIC |url=https://www.jic.ac.uk/about-us/history-of-plant-microbial-science-at-john-innes-centre/ |access-date=2023-06-29 |website=John Innes Centre |language=en-GB}}

Dixon was awarded the Fleming Award by the Society for General Microbiology in 1983 which recognises individuals who 'have made a distinct contribution to microbiology early in their career’.{{Cite web |last=Society |first=Microbiology |title=Fleming Prize Winners |url=https://microbiologysociety.org/grants-prizes/all-prizes-and-competitions-/prize-lectures/fleming-prize-lecture/fleming-prize-winners.html |access-date=2023-06-29 |website=microbiologysociety.org}} He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1999.{{Cite web |title=Raymond Dixon |url=https://royalsociety.org/people/raymond-dixon-11335/ |access-date=2023-06-29 |website=royalsociety.org}} In 2019, Dixon was a recipient of the Adam Kondorosi Academia Europea Award for Advanced Research in recognition of “revolutionary discoveries in symbiosis and related fields”.{{Cite web |title=Academy of Europe: The AE-Adam Kondorosi Prize |url=https://www.ae-info.org/ae/Acad_Main/Activities/Awards_and_Prizes/The_AE-Adam_Kondorosi_Prize#:~:text=%E2%80%9CThe%20Adam%20Kondorosi%20Academia%20Europaea%20Award%20for%20Advanced,Centre,%20UK,%20for%20his%20work%20on%20Rhizobium-legume%20interactions. |access-date=2023-06-29 |website=www.ae-info.org}}{{Cite web |date=2019-09-27 |title=Prestigious prize hails half a century of ground-breaking research |url=https://www.jic.ac.uk/news/prestigious-prize-hails-half-a-century-of-ground-breaking-research/ |access-date=2023-06-29 |website=John Innes Centre |language=en-GB}}