[1] His father was a machinist; his mother, Rosa (née Kuhfeld) was the daughter of an Austrian immigrant who worked as an engineer on the railways.
His father was also associated with the Farmer–Labor Party; his biographer Michael Oldstone notes that Dixon was brought up in a "progressive, liberal environment with an appreciation of the workingman".
[3] In 1961, with four colleagues from Pittsburgh, Dixon co-founded the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, San Diego, and served as its inaugural director until 1986, when he was succeeded by Richard Lerner.
He showed in experimental animals that high levels of complexes between antibody and proteins could be demonstrated in tissues that were injured in cases of serum sickness, such as the kidneys, heart, blood vessels and joints.
[1][4] At Scripps in the 1960s, with Michael Oldstone, he showed how persistent viral infections could also result in the deposition of immune complexes, leading to autoimmunity.