Metabolic engineering for the optimal production of Taxol (Paclitaxel) - an efficient anticancer drug (focusing on upstream pathways for isoprenoid accumulation).

Taxol is one of the most important and active chemotherapeutic agents for clinical treatment of cancers (including ovarian, breast bladder, prostate, and lung cancers), since taxol is an anti-proliferative agent that inhibits cancer cell division. However, the separation from pacific yew trees is the major resource of taxol, which makes the price of taxol prohibitively expensive and unsustainable. Microbial fermentation for the production of taxol has received much attention in recently years. In this thesis, we will investigate the taxol biosynthesis pathways in plant cells, and implement the gene expression systems into yeast and/or E. coli cells as the host, achieving high production yield of taxol in microbe(s).​Master of Science (Biomedical Engineering