[1] Before his election to Congress, Porter served in the Illinois House of Representatives and prior to that as an Honor Law Graduate Attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice in the Kennedy Administration.

Under his subcommittee’s jurisdiction were all the health programs and agencies, including National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), except U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and all of the education programs and agencies of the federal government.

He served as Research!America Chair Emeritus and was Vice-Chair of the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health.

He died from pneumonia at a hospital in Fairfax County, Virginia, on June 3, 2022, two days after his 87th birthday.

[5][6] The 84,500 square foot John Edward Porter Neuroscience Research Center on the campus of the National Institutes of Health is named in his honor.