Sarcoma

When USDA botanist Arthur Barclay collected a sample of bark from the Pacific yew tree in Washington State in 1962, he had no way of knowing that the sample would yield one of the most important cancer-fighting drugs ever developed. One of many botanists commissioned by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to collect parts of plants for testing as possible anti-cancer agents, Barclay personally collected more than 200 species for analysis. Among those samples, only the Pacific yew Taxus berevifolia , would contain a blockbuster pharmaceutical hit.In May of 1964, scientists tested the various samples collected by USDA botanists and discovered a cytotoxic compound in the Pacific yew sample collected by Barclay. Subsequent to that discovery, researchers Monroe Wall and Mansukh Wani, both working in a NCI drug discovery program in North Carolina, screened fresh Pacific yew samples and isolated a previously unknown, highly active cancer-fighting compound. In 1967, that compound was named Tax...

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