Terje Alraek has been a clinical acupuncturist for more than 30 years. In 1994 he became involved in research in acupuncture and defended in 2004 his thesis "Acupuncture in the prevention of recurrent uncomplicated lower urinary tract infection in adult women" at the Department of Public Health and Primary Health Care, University of Bergen, Norway. Alræk was the first acupuncturist in Norway who received a PhD in acupuncture. In 2004 he was appointed as a Senior Researcher at The National Research Center in Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NAFKAM), at UiT The Artic University of Tromsø, Norway. The Norway-China Cooperation in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is coordinated by NAFKAM. Terje Alraek is the project manager. He is also at present associate professor at Norwegian School of Health Sciences, Institute of Acupuncture, Kristiania University College. His major research interest has been in chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and women's health issues such as e.g. recurrent cystitis and menopausal hot flashes. His research is also related to Pattern Identification as found in TCM and other traditional East Asian medicine. It is of interest to study whether this identification can be related to different outcomes in clinical studies on acupuncture. Before that could be done properly one has to increase the validity and reliability of TCM diagnoses. Future studies will also be related to acupuncture and its possible effect on the autonomic nervous system.

WHO Collaborating Centre
NAFKAM was designated as a WHO Collaborating Centre for Traditional Medicine in 2008.

The Norway-China Cooperation
In 1999 Norway and China agreed to a Letter of Intent regarding cooperation within the field of health and medicine, and a plan of action was signed when the Norwegian Minister of Health at that time, Dagfinn Høybråten, visited China in October 2002. The Norwegian Directorate for Health and Social Affairs has assigned NAFKAM the duty of administrating the scientific and professional aspects of the section of the cooperation regarding Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).