Synthetic Approaches Towards Taxol; from Holton to Chida

Abstract: Nature is an inspiring source in drug discovery which constantly reveals new complex chemical structures of natural products that inherit attractive chemical challenges for organic chemists to synthesize them. Taxol is a unique natural product that impressive biological properties and a very tempting chemical structure that motivated organic chemists all over the world to enter the race for synthesizing it. The total synthesis of this highly oxygenated diterpene was completed by 11 different research groups starting from Holton (1994) to Chida (2022). This review article demonstrates the various retrosynthetic analysis of Taxol, the actual synthetic routes to it and highlights the key steps in each synthesis. It also provides a critical review of the advantages and disadvantages in all the synthetic routes in terms of number of steps, yields and the synthetic challenges.