Rutter is a founder of Chiron and Hertzstein Professor of Biochemistry Emeritus at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Rutter is currently founder and Chairman of Synergenics, LLC, which owns , and manages a consortium of 7 companies in different but complimentary areas of Biotechnology, and in different stages of development. Synergenics represents a new model for the commercialization of scientific innovation.

He received his B.A. from Harvard University and his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois. He was a professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Illinois, and later professor of Biochemistry in the Departments of Biochemistry and Genetics at the University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle. From 1969-1982, Dr. Rutter was chairman of the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at UCSF, during the period in which the department played a key role in developing recombinant DNA technology and genetic engineering. From 1983 through 1991, he was the Director of the Hormone Research Institute at UCSF. He has published more than 380 scientific articles and holds more than 20 patents. His lab made several early contributions in biotechnology, including the first cloning of the insulin gene and the development of a process to a vaccine for hepatitis B virus, the first vaccine based on recombinant DNA methodology.