HoustonChronicle.com - Scientists returning to nature for cancer cures

HoustonChronicle.com - Scientists returning to nature for cancer cures

By DAVID DISHNEAU Associated Press FREDERICK, MD. -

"Just one in 40,000 natural products yields an effective drug but scientists say the next Taxol — an anti-cancer agent derived from the bark of the Pacific yew tree — could be lurking in one of the repository's 200,000 bar-coded extracts."

"The costs of creating a marketable drug from a natural product are staggering. The General Accounting Office reports that the National Institutes of Health spent $183 million over 20 years for research on Taxol, which was approved for sale by Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. in 1992"

Talk about an article that evokes hope and despair at once. On the plus side, finding cures to problems is awesome! But while simultaneously facing the prospect of losing more and more species to extinction makes it in some ways a race. And yet another reason why we should be more concerned about the environment!