Objective To summarize the research hotspots and frontiers reflected in the National Natural Science Foundation of China（NSFC） projects regarding the field of internal medicine of traditional Chinese medicine（TCM）

and to provide ideas for developing discipline plan of TCM internal medicine in basic researches. Methods The official website of NSFC was searched for the approved projects from January 1 st

1997 to December 31 st

2019 in the filed of TCM internal medicine. Data on project leader

title

organization

funding amount

project number

project type and approved year were extracted to build a database. After extracting and preprocessing the subject terms through splitting

removing

and integrating

those with frequency ≥5 times were included to construct a visual network

and a cluster analysis of the included subject terms were conducted; a time overlay network was developed according to the average year of the subject terms. Results From 1997 to 2019

the NSFC has approved 1

751 projects in the field of internal medicine of TCM

with a total funding of 761.74 million yuan

mainly including general projects

youth projects and regional projects. Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine（216 projects）

Beijing University of Chinese Medicine（154 projects）

and China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences（132 projects） were the top three institutions having most approved projects. There were 3

518 subject terms included with a total frequency of 8

295 times

and the top three frequent subject terms were signal transduction pathways（791 times）

microRNA（155 times） and autophagy（135 times）

involving five research hotspots of signal transduction pathway

diabetes

tumor

atherosclerosis and microRNA. The research frontiers from 2014 to 2019 were intestinal flora

intestinal microbiota

microRNA

long non-coding RNA

autophagy

NLRP3 inflammasome

macrophages

exosomes

and mitochondria. Conclusion The total funding amount provided by NSFC in the field of TCM internal medicine seems to be stable; the number of the approved projects has steadily increased; the research topics has gradually enriched. However

the research series are more concentrated on exploration and talent series

while integration and tool series are relatively weak.