Project Overview

What is Taxol? Why is it important?

         Taxol, generically known as paclitaxel, is a chemotherapy drug highly efficient in combating multiple forms of cancer via interference with the normal breakdown of microtubules during cell division. Taxol’s efficacy has earned it a place on the World Health Organization’s Model List of Essential Medicines, a roster of the most critical medications needed for a basic health system.

Trudy and Joe: describe the importance of our project (essentially what you've done for human practices)

Maria and Joe: describe the the project

The aim of our project was to produce taxol in E. Coli starting from an intermediate (10-Deacetylbaccatin III) found in the taxol synthesis pathway. Our design used a modular approach to link the five necessary genes together onto a single DNA strand so that it could be easily adapted for next generation taxanes in the future. The project's end goal is to analyze the activity of produced taxol and evaluate this taxol biosynthesis design's feasibility in industrially relevant conditions. Homology modeling was used to develop protein models for the five necessary genes to determine active site architecture and catalytic functions. These models were then used to consider possible mutations to the genes in order to produce alternative taxane products with enhanced characteristics such as increased solubility and decreased toxicity.