Thomas Avery Garran

Thomas Avery Garran has been studying herbal medicine since 1989 and is a graduate of the American School of Herbalism as a direct student of Christopher Hobbs and Michael Tierra from 1992-96. He became licensed to practice Chinese medicine in the United States in 1996 and later attended Pacific College of Oriental Medicine, receiving his Masters of Science of Chinese Medicine degree in 1999. Thomas maintained a full-time practice in Chinese medicine from 1996 until moving to China in 2008....See more

Thomas Avery Garran has been studying herbal medicine since 1989 and is a graduate of the American School of Herbalism as a direct student of Christopher Hobbs and Michael Tierra from 1992-96. He became licensed to practice Chinese medicine in the United States in 1996 and later attended Pacific College of Oriental Medicine, receiving his Masters of Science of Chinese Medicine degree in 1999. Thomas maintained a full-time practice in Chinese medicine from 1996 until moving to China in 2008. From 2004-2007 he taught in the Herbology Department at the Institute of Clinical Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine, and in 2005 became the head of the department. During that time, he also served as an adviser to the John Burns School of Medicine, Department of Alternative Medicine at the University of Hawai'i. In 2007 he began to think more about research in the field of medicinal plants, and began pursuing PhD studies in the Ethnobotany section of Department of Botany at the University of Hawai'i. This was cut short in December of 2008 when he moved to Beijing full-time. Thomas also studied Chinese language and literature at the University of Hawai'i as well as the Beijing Language and Culture University and is fluent in Mandarin Chinese. In 2010, Thomas and his wife founded and manage the Autumn Reine Learning Garden, an ecological garden with medicinal plants from around the world. The learning garden was nearly 1/2 an acre area within a 30 acre farm. The farm was an ecological organic farm managed by Thomas for the production of medicinal plants (for both domestic and export sales). Since living in China, he has done clinical studies with a number of Chinese medicine doctors and has earned a PhD in Materia Medica studies at the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences in Beijing, and currently works with that institution in the area of ecological agriculture for growing Chinese medicinal plants. Thomas is also an adviser to the National Medicinal Plant Botanical Garden at the Institute of Medicinal Plant Development in Beijing and a committee member of the China Society of Medicinal Botany. His current areas of research are daodi herbs and their cultivation using ecological agriculture, comparative research of Chinese and Western herbs, and ethnobotanical research of native Chinese medicinal plants. He is the author or co-author of a number of peer-reviewed scientific papers, and has authored portions of and been a reviewer for several monographs published by the American Herbal Pharmacopeia. Thomas has been an invited lecturer in the United States, China, and Taiwan. He is a founding member of the Committee for the Preservation of Chinese Medicine (Beijing) and has been recognized by the Chinese government as an expert in the field of Chinese medicine. See less