Research Focus

Integrative Medicine Research in Rheumatic and Autoimmune Diseases

Exploring how traditional Chinese medicine can be meaningfully integrated into modern care for rheumatic and autoimmune diseases.

My perspective

My long-term question is simple but important: what meaningful role can traditional Chinese medicine play for patients with autoimmune and rheumatic diseases? I do not want TCM to remain in a vague supportive position. I want to examine its role within the entire care pathway and ask how it may affect symptoms, quality of life, disease activity, and long-term outcomes.

What I care about most in this area

Integration rather than replacement

What matters to me is how TCM and modern medicine can work together in real clinical practice.

Real-world evidence matters

Large databases, real-world studies, and accumulated cases are all part of how I understand clinical value.

Clinical practice and research should inform each other

Many important questions first appear in clinic and only later become formal research questions.

Making complex disease care more understandable

Autoimmune diseases cross organs, systems, and time scales; integrative thinking helps organize that complexity.

Representative papers

Integrative therapy decreases the risk of lupus nephritis in SLE (2017)A representative outcome paper in autoimmune integrative care.

Integrated Therapy Decreases the Mortality of Patients with Polymyositis and Dermatomyositis (2019)Shows my interest in long-term outcome and survival.

Renal and survival benefits of prescribed Chinese herbal medicines in SLE with CKD (2024)Extends the discussion to kidney outcomes and prognosis.

Representative projects

I list each directly relevant project separately here, including both NSTC and hospital-based projects. If this website does not currently contain a standalone project for this theme, I leave it blank rather than forcing a match.

NSTC 113-2320-B-A49-029Systematic dissection of exosome-miRNA and transcriptome profiling of dry eye syndrome and Sjögren’s syndromeA core autoimmune-rheumatic platform project

V114C-078Systemic proteomic analysis of plasma exosomesHospital project

V115C-111Application of TBDESJS on an integrated lipid metabolism and immune-cell response platformHospital project

Teaching links

Talk series on SLE and Sjögren’s syndromeMy teaching work is also part of how I refine and transmit this integrative framework.