About Us
The Primo Vascular Therapeutic Research Institute (PVTRI) is an independent research and educational institute dedicated to advancing understanding of the Primo Vascular System and exploring its potential for therapeutic interaction through manual medicine.
Our work occupies a particular place within PVS research. While much of the scientific investigation of the system has necessarily taken place in the laboratory, PVTRI is concerned with what happens when that research is brought to the living human body: how PVS structures may be identified, located, differentiated, and approached through manual interaction.
Our Origins
PVTRI developed from the International Society for Primo Vascular Manipulation (ISPVM), established in 2019 at the initiative of Professor Soh Kwang-Sup and co-founded with Paul Roberts.
Professor Soh had played a central role in reviving international scientific interest in the Primo Vascular System and extending the research begun by Kim Bong-Han in the 1960s. In the later years of his work, he also became interested in a question that remained largely unexplored: whether the PVS could be identified and interacted with manually in the living body.
The ISPVM was established to pursue this direction, bringing PVS research beyond observation in the laboratory and toward the development of methods for manual identification and therapeutic investigation.
Following Professor Soh’s passing in 2022, this work continued. In 2025, the ISPVM developed into the Primo Vascular Therapeutic Research Institute (PVTRI), based in Hong Kong.
Our Direction
PVTRI continues this line of inquiry through research, education, publication, and interdisciplinary collaboration.
Our current work focuses particularly on the development and refinement of:
- methods for locating and identifying PVS structures in the living body;
- palpatory criteria for differentiating primo-nodes and primo-vessels from surrounding tissues;
- anatomical and functional mapping of accessible PVS pathways;
- manual approaches for interacting therapeutically with the system; and
- methods by which these observations can be documented, compared, and investigated more systematically.
The Primo Vascular System remains an evolving field of research. PVTRI therefore approaches this work as an ongoing investigation: drawing from the historical literature and contemporary scientific research while developing new questions at the interface between anatomy, manual medicine, and therapeutic practice.