The Story of Taxol

USDA Botanist Arthur Barclay Dies

from the Washington Post

Arthur Stewart Barclay, 71, a retired government botanist who was credited with harvesting the original sample of a plant that was developed into the cancer-fighting drug Taxol, died Nov. 6, [2003] at a hospital in Orlando, Fla., after a heart attack. In 1962, Dr. Barclay led a team of botanists from the U.S. Department of Agriculture on a plant expedition in the state of Washington, where he collected bark from the evergreen tree taxus brevifolia, commonly known as the Pacific Yew. The specimen was shipped from the Gifford Pinchot National Forest near Packwood, Wash., to the National Institutes of Health. After two years of research, North Carolina scientists, working under a contract with the U.S. National Cancer Institute, isolated the chemical compound Taxol, which has since been used as a treatment for forms of cancer. Dr. Barclay traveled frequently as part of the government's "shotgun strategy" toward plant exploration. He collected small plant samples from Mexico, Colombia, Chile and South Africa and made return trips for larger harvests if the plants showed promising medicinal properties.

The former Greenbelt resident worked for the USDA for 21 years before retiring in 1980, at 49, because of a debilitating neurological disorder called central pontine myelinolysis. By receiving rehabilitation treatment at Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore, Dr. Barclay was able to overcome the rare nerve disease that affects the brainstem, said his wife, Janet McCutcheon Barclay. Dr. Barclay, who moved to Florida in 1999, was born in Minneapolis and raised in Tulsa, Okla. His parents taught at the University of Tulsa, from which he graduated. He received a master's degree and a doctorate in botany from Harvard University. Survivors include his wife, who lives in Orlando, and a stepdaughter, Paige E. Powell of Alexandria.