After graduating from Oxford, Darren trained to be a science teacher and then spent four years teaching. In 1996, he moved to Exeter to study for a PhD, with Professor Nick Talbot, entitled ‘Regulation of the pathogenicity gene MPG1 in the rice blast fungus Magnaporthe grisea’. Darren’s subsequent post-doctoral positions have been in the field of bioinformatics, including several projects involving comparative genomics of fungal phytopathogens, as well as transcriptional regulation in M. grisea. He has also been a bioinformatician at the Exeter Sequencing service and in the Complex Disease Epigenomics group. In 2023, Darren joined the NIHR Exeter Biomedical Research Centre as the main bioinformatician within the neurodegeneration theme.