Act I, 1962-1975
'The Pacific Yew, Taxus brevifolia, is a very slow-growing conifer found principally in the understory of old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest, from northern California to Alaska. In 1962, as part of their sweep through California, Oregon, and Washington, collecting plant material at random for the NCI-USDA interagency plant screening programme, a USDA botanist, together with three graduate student helpers, sampled parts of Taxus brevifolia. They bagged, tagged and shipped the collection back to the East Coast for further analysis. Four years later, chemists at the Research Triangle Institute in North Carolina isolated a cytotoxic compound from the bark. The following year, 1967, they named the compound taxol. It had antitumor activity against L1210, a lymphoid leukemia.
....
By the time of Barclay's collection, there were only two published articles in recent times on Taxus brevifolia. Neither gave any indication that the tree was interesting from the point of view of cancer. Indeed, one of them dismissed the Taxus brevifolia as a likely candidate.
....
As old-growths were clear-cut and the land replanted to make way for even-age industrial forests, the stock of many unwanted species was being depleted without begin replaced. Neither the Forest Service nor the timber industry was concerned. One of the species unvalued and unwanted by the timber industry was Taxus brevifolia. By contrast, and unknown to everyone associated with the forest, Taxus brevifolia was becoming a very valuable species as a result of the events inside Monroe Wall's laboratory Wall's revelation that KB activity was concentrated in a chloroform fraction was turning the spotlight on the tree. By March 1966, an interesting juxtaposition had occurred. Perdue and Hartwell, responding to Wall, listed Taxus brevifolia as a high priority species; in the forest, it was nothing more than trash.'
(Goodman J, Walsh V, The Story of Taxol, Cambridge University Press, 2001)
'The Pacific Yew, Taxus brevifolia, is a very slow-growing conifer found principally in the understory of old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest, from northern California to Alaska. In 1962, as part of their sweep through California, Oregon, and Washington, collecting plant material at random for the NCI-USDA interagency plant screening programme, a USDA botanist, together with three graduate student helpers, sampled parts of Taxus brevifolia. They bagged, tagged and shipped the collection back to the East Coast for further analysis. Four years later, chemists at the Research Triangle Institute in North Carolina isolated a cytotoxic compound from the bark. The following year, 1967, they named the compound taxol. It had antitumor activity against L1210, a lymphoid leukemia.
....
By the time of Barclay's collection, there were only two published articles in recent times on Taxus brevifolia. Neither gave any indication that the tree was interesting from the point of view of cancer. Indeed, one of them dismissed the Taxus brevifolia as a likely candidate.
....
As old-growths were clear-cut and the land replanted to make way for even-age industrial forests, the stock of many unwanted species was being depleted without begin replaced. Neither the Forest Service nor the timber industry was concerned. One of the species unvalued and unwanted by the timber industry was Taxus brevifolia. By contrast, and unknown to everyone associated with the forest, Taxus brevifolia was becoming a very valuable species as a result of the events inside Monroe Wall's laboratory Wall's revelation that KB activity was concentrated in a chloroform fraction was turning the spotlight on the tree. By March 1966, an interesting juxtaposition had occurred. Perdue and Hartwell, responding to Wall, listed Taxus brevifolia as a high priority species; in the forest, it was nothing more than trash.'
(Goodman J, Walsh V, The Story of Taxol, Cambridge University Press, 2001)