Taxol: search for a cancer drug: Natural products chemistry vindicated and conservation concerns balanced in the quest for plant-based medicines

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The search for cancer cures has become a marathon with no finish line in sight. Every few years, however, the pace quickens as scientists find a promising treatment. This year, after much tantalizing publicity, one such treatment - taxol, the extract of the yew tree's bark - gets a chance to prove itself. Thirty years in the making, taxol's use is no longer experimental. The Food and Drug Administration has approved the drug for general use in advanced ovarian cancer. Therefore, doctors can now prescribe it for thousands of women who are not necessarily in experimental programs. Some physicians call taxol the most exciting new cancer drug in more than a decade and expect it to be approved for other types of cancer as well. If it works as well as expected, not only will lives be saved, but drug discovery could take a new direction, back into the world outside the laboratory. The chances are good that partially or wholly synthesized drugs based on the taxol molecule eventually will replace the bark extract. But taxol has made nature's case - that plants still offer surprising new chemicals. As biologists in the natural products field like to say, natural selection is a lot more inventive than human chemists. After all, it invented them.

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Reference Code: U93JOY01IDUS

Full Citation: Joyce, C. 1993. Taxol: search for a cancer drug: Natural products chemistry vindicated and conservation concerns balanced in the quest for plant-based medicines. BioScience 43(3): 133-136.

Location: PLANT EF: TAXUS BREVIFOLIA