Sophie Manner Ph. D. Student Telephone: +46 46 222 8138 Fax: +46 46 222 4119 Postal Address: Box 124, SE 221 00 Lund E-mail: Sophie.Manner@organic.lu.se

Taxol, a natural product extracted from the Pacific yaw tree, is one of the most important anti cancer drugs introduced in the last 10 years. Since the discovery in the beginning of the 1960's, the interest in this molecule has been fuelled by its clinical activity against ovarian and breast cancer. However, due to severe side effects, such as nerve damage, there is a continuous search for new molecules that can mimic the activity of Taxol. In this project, we have chosen to synthesise a mimica based on a bicyclic framework. Computational calculations have shown this structure to be promising due to similarities in the spatial arrangement of pharmacophores.

Supervisor: Torbjörn Frejd