The Tuklas Lunas is a drug discovery and development program initiated by the Philippine Council for Health Research and Development (PCHRD) of DOST under its Natural Substance Research Program which is mandated to develop new drugs for tropical and other diseases including cancer.

Through the Program, PCHRD aims to establish a Drug Discovery Database which will store information on all researches conducted on natural products. This will serve as a tool in guiding researchers as to which species have the potential for further studies leading to the discovery of new drugs. Alongside the development of the database, three Tuklas Lunas Development Centers were named for Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. These were chosen based on excellent research and development track record, competitive staff and institutional capacity. TLDCs receive research and equipment grants from PCHRD-DOST.

As a Tuklas Lunas Development Center, MMSU will lead other research institutes in Luzon in unifying research efforts in natural substances for drug discovery. It is expected to generate cooperation among the nearby universities and research institutions towards collaborative researches in discovering potential drug sources from indigenous species in Luzon.

MMSU is implementing the project Modulatory Role of Indigenous Medicinal Plants Identified in Ilocos Norte in Acute and Chronic Inflammatory Diseases. The project aims to:

• determine the phytochemical, toxicologic profiling and anti-inflammatory activity of the 46 indigenous plants commonly consumed by the people in Ilocos Norte by qualitative analysis and in-vivo testing, respectively;
• identify the active compounds of the indigenous medicinal plants by quantitative analysis; and
• assess the preventive effect of selected indigenous plants in both acute and chronic inflammatory diseases (Acute Lower Respiratory Disease and Bronchitis) using an animal model of inflammation.