Two-Phase Synthesis of Taxol

Taxol (a brand name for paclitaxel)
is widely regarded as among
the most famed natural isolates ever discovered, and has been the
subject of innumerable studies in both basic and applied science.
Its documented success as an anticancer agent, coupled with early
concerns over supply, stimulated a furious worldwide effort from chemists
to provide a solution for its preparation through total synthesis.
Those pioneering studies proved the feasibility of retro­synthetically
guided access to synthetic Taxol, albeit in minute quantities and
with enormous effort. In practice, all medicinal chemistry efforts
and eventual commercialization have relied upon natural (plant material)
or biosynthetically derived (synthetic biology) supplies. Here we
show how a complementary divergent synthetic approach that is holistically
patterned off of biosynthetic machinery for terpene synthesis can
be used to arrive at Taxol.