Rudolf Signer went to high school in St. Gallen and matriculated at the ETH Zurich in 1921 to study chemistry, initially in order to become a teacher.
Already 1926 he had become Wissenschaftlicher Assistent at the University of Fribourg, where he qualified as a professor with a Habilitation.
He became a non-tenured professor for general and inorganic chemistry at the University of Bern in 1935 and was tenured in 1939.
In England he gave it to various scientists, among them Maurice Wilkins, in order to promote research in the field.
The remainder of the DNA which Signer brought to England survive today in the collection of King's College, London.