Taxol: the chemistry and structure-activity relationships of a novel anticancer agent

Taxol is an exciting new anticancer drug, showing clinical activity against ovarian and breast cancer. Its development as a clinically useful drug has involved major efforts to overcome the supply problem; this has now been done, and the focus of interest has moved to the development of improved analogs of the drug. Recent notable achievements include the first total synthesis of taxol, and the first indications of its binding site on tubulin.