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  • Taxus baccata L. Taxaceae European Yew. Trees are feminine in Latin, so while Taxus has a masculine ending (-us), its specific name, baccata (meaning 'having fleshy berries' (Stearn, 1994)), agrees with it in gender by having a female ending ( -a). Distribution: Europe. Although regarded as poisonous since Theophrastus, Gerard and his school friends used to eat the red berries (they are technically called 'arils') without harm. Johnson clearly ate the fleshy arils and spat out the seed, which is as poisonous as the leaves. It is a source of taxol, an important chemotherapeutic agent for breast and other cancers. It was first extracted from the bark of T. brevifolia, the Pacific yew tree, in 1966. About 1,100 kg of bark produces 10 g of taxol, and 360,000 trees a year would have been required for the needs of the USA – an unsustainable amount. In 1990 a precursor of taxol was extracted from the needles of the European yew so saving the Pacific trees. It is now produced in fermentation tanks from cell cultures of Taxus. Curiously, there is a fungus, Nodulisporium sylviforme, which lives on the yew tree, that also produces taxol. Because taxol stops cell division, it is also used in the stents that are inserted to keep coronary arteries open. Here it inhibits – in a different way, but like anti-fouling paint on the bottom of ships – the overgrowth of endothelial cells that would otherwise eventually block the tube. The economic costs of anticancer drugs are significant. Paclitaxel ‘Taxol’ for breast cancer costs (2012) £246 every 3 weeks
  • HeLa cells
  • Differentiated neural stem cells
  • Neurons in culture
  • Derivation of embryonic stem cells
  • Derivation of embryonic stem cells
  • Glioblastoma cells transfected with P10
  • Human osteosarcoma cells
  • Glioblastoma cells transfected with P10
  • Mouse embryonic stem cells
  • Mouse embryonic stem cells
  • Human HeLa cancer cells, cytokinesis
  • Human embryonic stem cells
  • Human embryonic stem cells
  • Human embryonic stem cells
  • Fibroblast showing actin cytoskeleton - purp
  • Dividing fibroblast showing actin and DNA
  • Embryonic kidney cells
  • Embryonic kidney cells
  • Neurons and astrocytes from neural stem cells
  • Neurons derived from neural stem cells
  • HeLa cell showing nuclei and nucleoli
  • HeLa cells showing nuclei and nucleoli
  • HeLa cells showing nuclei and nucleoli
  • Neurons derived from neural stem cells
  • Human colon cancer cell line
  • Brain cancer stem cells
  • Neurons derived from ES cells
  • Human colon cancer cells