Yew hedges at St John’s College are now being used to help scientists in the ongoing fight to beat cancer.

The discarded yew needles from the sixty-year old hedges are sent off to European pharmaceutical companies, where the poisonous alkaloids in the waste are developed into leukaemia-fighting drugs.

While the yew’s toxicity has the potential to be deadly at high doses, research conducted in the 1990s by scientists from Leicester University and the University of Manchester has found that a particular compound within could prevent cancerous cells from growing and dividing.

The compound, 10-Deacetylbaccatin III, is at its highest concentration in the new growth of yew needles that are clipped annually in the St John’s gardens and all over the country.
A yearly trimming of the hedges also stimulates the production of the cancer-fighting compound in larger quantities.

Two chemotherapy drugs, docetaxel and paclitaxel, are developed using yew tree extract. These drugs are mostly used in the treatment of breast and ovarian cancer.

Fresh yew needles are still a very important part of the manufacturing process for these live-saving drugs, although the necessary compounds can now also be created semi-synthetically in order to supplement the supply of plants.

Adam Magee, the head gardener at St John's College, said that he was very happy to be joining the fight against cancer through the use of St Jonn’s hedges.

He said: "This year, we have collected over 365kg of usable yew clippings which will go to fight cancer. The cuttings would otherwise go to waste, so I'm glad that St John's can help out with this very worthwhile cause.”

Matthew Cookes, of the company Friendship Estates, which collects the yew clippings from St John’s, was equally cheerful.

“We collect yew clippings from several gardens in Cambridge and all around the country and dry them to preserve and stabilise the leaves,” Cookes said.

Friendship Estates is currently based in Doncaster and has been in the business of collecting yew from universities, gardens and stately homes since 1992, all of which are used as raw materials in the pharmaceutical industry.

“They are...sent to a company in Europe who isolate and extract the active compound. This is then supplied to the medical industry to make drugs to fight cancer”.

“Demand for the treatment has increased in recent years, so we are very happy to have a partnership with St John’s College to help supply the raw materials we need”.