Promoting high-quality development of acupuncture and moxibustion

In the past 20 years, the acupuncture-moxibustion discipline has made a great progress in clinical research, method construction, standard formulation, guideline promotion, basic theory and key scientific issue research. Internationally, the development of acupuncture and moxibustion has gradually begun to pay more attention to the basic issues of the discipline itself from focusing on clinical evidence. The National Institute of Health of USA pays close attention to the construction of acupoint knowledge base and database and to the transformation of peripheral nerve stimulation techniques, which brings forth opportunities and challenges for the development of acupuncture-moxibustion discipline. In the present paper, we analyze the shortcomings of the current development of acupuncture and moxibustion, put forward some strategies for high-quality development in the future, and sort out the basic scientific issues to form an academic consensus. We should employ modern scientific language to express the scientific connotations of the basic theory of acupuncture and moxibustion, and build an open and self-consistent modern theoretical system. In addition, we also should attract more multidisciplinary talents to harmoniously and assiduously work together, insist on continuous innovation to open up a new situation in the transformation of basic scientific research achievements, and establish a new theoretical system of “somato-medicine” represented by acupuncture and moxibustion. In this way, we will guide the acupuncture-moxibustion discipline to make an original contribution to the modern life science and future medicine.