Florida State University chemist Professor Robert Holton was among the first against cancer. See www.taxolog.com

Taxol® (paclitaxel), which the National Cancer Institute has described as the most important cancer drug in 15 years, received approval from the FDA for use to treat several new indications in 1998, including two indications for first-line cancer therapy: Taxol in combination with cisplatin was approved for first use in treating ovarian cancer, and Taxol in combination with Herceptin was approved for first use in treating metastatic breast cancer. Previous approved indications for Taxol were for use only after failure of other first-line treatments. It had already been approved for treatment of refractory ovarian cancer; as a second-line treatment of AIDS-related Kaposi's sarcoma; and in treatment of breast cancer after failure of combination chemotherapy for metastatic disease or relapse within six months of adjuvant chemotherapy.

The active compound was first discovered during the 1970s in the Pacific Yew tree. The bark from one and a half trees of this endangered species was required to produce the typical treatment course. Removing the bark killed the trees. In 1991, Professor Robert Holton, a Florida State University chemist, found a way to synthesize paclitaxel using starting material from the needles and twigs of the more common English Yew, which could be harvested without killing the tree. The work was licensed to Bristol-Myers Squibb, which began production in 1992. Today, scientists at FSU, the MDS Research Foundation and Taxolog, Inc., a FSU start-up company, are hard at work, developing Taxol analogs in partnership with the Wyeth pharmaceutical company to add to the arsenal in the war against cancer. See www.taxolog.com.

For a more complete story on Taxol®, see an article in FSU's Research in Review magazine, VOL XII, NO 3 (Fall 2002) at http://www.research.fsu.edu/researchr/fall2002/taxol.html