Heiner Fruehauf is the Founding Professor of the College of Classical Chinese Medicine at National University of Natural Medicine (NUNM) in Portland, Oregon, where he has been teaching since 1992. As a practitioner, Dr. Fruehauf focuses on the complementary treatment of difficult and recalcitrant diseases, including cancer, chronic respiratory and digestive disorders, and inflammation of the nervous system.

His scholarly endeavors include an ongoing research project on the holistic cosmology of Chinese medicine, in essence a decoding of the ancient symbolism that once correlated the macrocosm of the natural world with the microcosm of the human body. In addition, Dr. Fruehauf founded Classical Pearls Herbal Formulas over a decade ago in order to bring the formulas used in his clinical practice to a more accessible form for clinicians. The endeavor has also allowed him to maintain control over ingredient sourcing, procurement, and processing in mainland China, including supporting small family farms who grow, harvest, and process many of the raw ingredients. Dr. Fruehauf is also the director of the Heron Institute, a nonprofit institution for the research and preservation of traditional life science. In this capacity, he has been leading the Sacred Mountain Retreat for three decades, a semiannual study tour to the mountains of southwest China that focuses on qigong and other aspects of classical Chinese medicine. He lives in the beautiful Columbia Gorge in Oregon with his wife, Sheron, their kids, 5 goats, 2 cats, and 11 chickens.