Enrico Di Cera was born in Palermo, Italy, in 1960. He obtained his M.D. degree in 1985 from the Catholic University Medical School in Rome. He subsequently worked as a postdoctoral fellow with Stanley Gill and Jeffries Wyman in Boulder, CO, on experimental and theoretical aspects of protein allostery.

In 1990, he joined the faculty at Washington University, where he eventually became the Roy and Diana Vagelos Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics and Professor of Internal Medicine. In January 2010, he joined the faculty at Saint Louis University as the Alice A. Doisy Professor and Chairman of the Edward A. Doisy Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.