First syntheses of new anticancer agent

Abstract

A bacterial natural product that is attracting considerable interest as a potential anticancer drug has been synthesized for the first time. The compound, epothilone A, and the related structure, epothilone B, seem to be more potent than the commercialized anticancer drug paclitaxel—and to have the same mechanism of action. The first total synthesis of epothilone A was carried out by chemistry professor Samuel J. Danishefsky, coworkers at Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research in New York City, and a graduate student at Columbia University [ Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. Engl, 35 , 2801 (1996)]. Danishefsky's group also has completed a second synthesis and has submitted a scientific paper describing it to a journal. Meanwhile, two other synthetic approaches to epothilone A will be published soon by an independent group led by chemistry professor K. C. Nicolaou at Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, Calif., and at the University of California, San Diego. A third research group currently is ...