Dr. Hutt earned his undergraduate degree in biochemistry from the University of Ottawa. He also completed his PhD in neuroscience at the University of Ottawa under the mentorship of Dr. Johnny Ngsee and Dr. Jay Baltz, studying the role of Rab GTPases and SNARE proteins in regulating vesicle trafficking and fusion. Dr. Hutt then joined the laboratory of Dr. William Balch at Scripps Research in La Jolla, California. Here he studied the trafficking and function of cystic fibrosis (CF)-causing variants of the CF transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) protein, a cAMP-regulated chloride channel, which is critical for proper ionic homeostasis and hydration of the extracellular environment of nearly all tissues. These studies identified a number of novel pathways that can be targeted to correct the trafficking and functional defects associated with the most common and severe CFTR variant. Dr. Hutt then joined Scripps Research as a Staff Scientist, where he examined the impact of protein misfolding on the proteostatic environment of cells and how modulation of this proteostatic environment can mitigate variant-specific protein misfolding of numerous disease-causing protein variants.

Dr. Hutt joined the IND in 2019. His work focuses on the discovery of therapeutic interventions to treat neurodegenerative diseases.