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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
  • Human blastocyst within the zona pellucida
  • Human blastocyst within the zona pellucida
  • Human HeLa cancer cells, cytokinesis
  • HeLa 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
  • Human embryonic stem cells
  • Human embryonic stem cells
  • Human embryonic stem cells
  • Cerebellar granule neuron in culture
  • Neurons and astrocytes from neural stem cells
  • Differentiated neural stem cells
  • Embryonic kidney cells
  • Embryonic kidney cells
  • Differentiating neuroblast
  • Differentiating neuroblasts
  • Neurons derived from neural stem cells
  • Brain cancer stem cells
  • Neurons derived from ES cells
  • Human colon cancer cells
  • Human colon cancer cells
  • Neurons in culture
  • Astrocytes and oligodendrocytes from neural stem cells
  • Astrocytes and oligodendrocytes from neural stem cells