9358452 Curtis This award will focus on the scale-up of chemical production from plant tissue cultures. The potential of plant tissue cultures as sources of biologically active chemicals is exemplified by taxol, an anti-cancer drug recently approved by the FDA for treatment of ovarian cancer. Taxol is isolated from the bark of the Pacific yew tree. The yields from this tree are relatively low and several trees are required to treat a single patient. The tree is also slow growing, ie., it requires 100 years to mature, and has a very limited area of distribution. Plant cell cultures may provide an alternative for the production of taxol as well as other plant derived products, and thus provide a means of overcoming limitations in natural resources. ***
