E. coli Genetically Engineered to Produce Expensive Cancer Drug

In the Oct. 1 issue of the journal "Science", researchers report a major genetic engineering accomplishment.  The potent anti-cancer drug "Taxol" is very expensive (about $10000 per dose), in part due to the high cost of production.  In the past, the drug was extracted from the Pacific Yew tree - it required approximately two to four trees to treat a single patient.  More recently scientists succeeding in producing Taxol from plant tissue culture, but plant tissue culture is still very expensive, and the concentration of Taxol produced was miniscule.  The new genetically engineered E. coli strain is cheaper to grow and maintain, and produces about 1000 times more Taxol than the previous systems. 

For more information, see the original article in Science:
Ajikumar et al. 2010.  Isoprenoid pathway optimization for Taxol precursor overproduction in Escherichia coli.  Science 330:70-74.

Graduates from the NAIT Biological Sciences Technology - Lab and Research program often find work in research labs that do research of this nature - using similar tools and techniques to solve a variety of scientific and technological problems leading to profound benefits to society.  The basic methods used in this study are taught throughout the NAIT program.