Reginald H. Garrett was educated in the Baltimore city public schools and at the Johns Hopkins University, where he received his Ph.D. in biology in 1968. Since that time, he has conducted research and taught biochemistry courses at the University of Virginia, where he is currently Professor of Biology. He is the author of numerous papers and review articles on biochemical, genetic, and molecular biological aspects of inorganic nitrogen metabolism. His early research focused on the pathway of nitrate assimilation in filamentous fungi. His investigations contributed substantially to our understanding of the enzymology, genetics, and regulation of this major pathway of biological nitrogen acquisition. More recently, he has collaborated in systems approaches to the metabolic basis of nutrition-related diseases. His research has been supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and private industry. A member of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Garrett is a former Fulbright Scholar, was twice Visiting Scholar at the University of Cambridge, and was Invited Professor at the University of Toulouse, France.