John Carra

Dr. Carra has a BS in Biology from MIT and a PhD in Biochemistry from Brandeis University. His doctoral thesis with Dr. Robert Schleif focused on gene regulation of the ara operon in E. coli. Post-doctoral work with Dr. Peter Privalov examined the thermodynamics of protein folding. After leaving the JHU Biology Dept., Dr. Carra spent the next 21 years at the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, Fort Detrick, MD. Here he was the P.I. of a laboratory studying many problems in the biochemistry, molecular biology and immunology of biodefense. Most recent work was on vaccines for Ebola virus disease. He left the Federal government at the end of 2019 and is living in blissful retirement on a small farm in the mountains of Maryland. Since 2000, Dr. Carra has also been an adjunct instructor for the AAP, teaching classes including Science, Medicine and Policy in Biodefense, Molecular Biology, Biochemistry, and the Recombinant DNA lab.