Professor Atta-ur-Rahman obtained his PhD in organic chemistry from Cambridge University (1968). He has 854 publications in several fields of organic chemistry including 658 research publications, 18 patents, 113 books and 65 chapters in books published largely by major US and European presses. He is Editor-in-Chief of several high impact factor journals including 'Current Medicinal Chemistry', 'Current Organic Synthesis', 'Current Organic Chemistry' and 'Current Nanoscience'; and of the encyclopedic Elsevier series 'Studies in Natural Products Chemistry' (35 volumes).

In 1999 Professor Rahman became the first scientist from the Muslim world to win the prestigious UNESCO Science Prize in the 35 year old history of the Prize. He was elected as Fellow of Royal Society in July 2006 thereby becoming the one of only four scientists from the Muslim world to have ever won this honour. He has been conferred honorary doctorate degrees by many universities including the degree of Doctor of Science (ScD) by the Cambridge University, honorary degree of Doctor of Education by Coventry University, Honorary DSc degree by Bradford University and Honorary PhD by Asian Institute of Technology. He was elected Honorary Life Fellow of Kings College, Cambridge University in 2007.

He is President of Network of Academies of Sciences of Islamic Countries (NASIC) and the Vice-President (Central and South Asia) of the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World (TWAS) Council, and Foreign Fellow of Korean Academy of Sciences. Prof. Atta-ur-Rahman was the President of the Pakistan Academy of Sciences, 2003-06, and was again elected as the President of the Academy from January 2011. Professor Atta-ur-Rahman was the Federal Minister for Science and Technology, Federal Minister of Education and Chairman of the Higher Education Commission with the status of a Federal Minister from 2002-08.

Successive Governments of Pakistan have conferred four civil awards, including the highest national civil award, Nishan-i-Imtiaz, on him. Professor Atta-ur-Rahman is presently the Coordinator General of COMSTECH, an Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Ministerial Committee comprising the 57 Ministers of Science and Technology from 57 OIC member countries. He is also the Patron of International Centre of Chemical and Biological Sciences at Karachi University.