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The Pacific Yew and Cancer
| Article
# : |
19130 |
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Section : |
NATURAL SCIENCE
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| Issue
Date : |
1 / 1991 |
1,904 Words |
| Author
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Georgia J. Persinos
Georgia J. Persinos is a pharmacognosit interested in the
discovery of medicines from plants and other natural
resources. She is currently writing a book titled From Plants
to Modern Medicine--Methods of Discovery. |
After waiting in the wings for almost thirty years, the debut of the new cancer drug taxol is threatened by short supply and the spotted owl. Taxol is obtained from the bark of the Pacific yew: a scrawny, slow-growing tree that thrives under the forest canopy in the Northwest--the very same forests where the spotted owl lives. Environmentalists want the forests set aside to preserve the owl. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) wants taxol. Who will win the conflict?
Speaking before a special workshop of 200 scientists gathered to figure out how to resolve the problem of taxol's short supply, NCI director Samuel Broder said the drug would now be in large clinical trials with women who have ovarian cancer were it not for its scarcity. He pointed out that there have been dramatic responses in treating women who have ovarian cancer with taxol, adding that it is a foregone conclusion that there will be other major responses in breast cancer and certain forms of lung cancer.
Right now the NCI has only enough taxol to treat 200-300 people. The institute is ready to commit $1 million to resolve the supply problem. So far synthesis has eluded chemists because taxol's structure is so complex. Chemists at several universities (including Virginia Polytechnic Institute and Florida State University) and in industry both here and abroad (such as Rhone Poulenc in France) and vigorously continuing their efforts to synthesize taxol, but for now, bark of the Pacific yew is the only immediate source.
The yew grows along the Pacific coast, from Alaska southward to California, and as far inland as Idaho. Some taxol will be made available, for though the yew is most abundant in the Oregon and Washington forests where the spotted owl lives, large stands have been located in the Nez Perce National Forest in Idaho. The yew is also common in some forests in British Columbia, but these areas are not readily accessible.
The pharmaceutical company Bristol-Myers Squibb has signed a cooperative research and development agreement with the NCI to develop and market taxol and supply the institute with enough for its ongoing studies. The Colorado-based Hauser Chemical Research Inc. has been collecting yew bark for the drug company; it is expected that the Weyerhaeuser Company, working with Bristol-Myers Squibb, will cultivate the Pacific yew.
Quest For an anticancer Drug
In
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