Nelson is an organic and medicinal chemist with over 10 years of experience in anticancer drug discovery, complex molecule synthesis, and developing ‘molecular editing’ tools to expedite pharmaceutical development. After graduating top in class at the University of Auckland, Nelson obtained a full scholarship for doctoral research at the University of Cambridge. He was one of three nationally-elected Lindemann Fellows from the UK for postdoctoral research to develop ‘molecular editing’ tools to expedite drug development at the Scripps Research Institute. He currently holds a Research Fellowship at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. His research has been published in leading journals, including Nature, Nature Chemistry and the Journal of the American Chemical Society.