Understanding detailed pathway could lead to improved cell culture techniques for production of potent anticancer drug Researchers are beginning to understand the detailed biosynthetic pathway by which yew plants produce the anticancer agent taxol. Their findings could lead to the development of a more efficient cell culture process for commercial production of taxol as an alternative to the semisynthetic process currently used to make the drug. Taxol is a natural product with potent activity against a range of cancers, including ovarian and breast cancer. It was originally extracted at great expense from the bark of the Pacific yew tree. The commercial drug is currently produced by Bristol-Myers Squibb in a more environmentally benign fashion by extracting a precursor from renewable yew needles and then converting it semisynthetically to taxol. This process, in which taxol's side chain structure is linked to the taxane core structure, is called semisynthetic because 10-deacetylbaccatin III, the taxane us...