APRIL-MAY 2000

SCIENTIST DONATES RESEARCH MONEY

HOLTON

By Dana Peck
Special to the Florida State Times

No one has earned more research royalties for Florida State than Robert Holton. Never-the-less, the FSU chemistry professor and alumnus has decided to contribute $6 million more.

As president of the MDS Research Foundation, Holton is directing $6 million to Florida State for the construction of a new chemistry building. When completed, the $24-million structure should become a center for molecular recognition research, the type of research that led to Holton's pioneering work on Taxol, a miracle drug for treating cancer and other diseases.

University officials say Holton's gift will elevate FSU in the ranks of major research centers in the world and will attract additional world-renowned scientists.
One bonus from Holton's contribution will be matching construction dollars from the state. That money, added to $10 million in royalties that FSU's chemistry department receives from Hol-ton's patent on Taxol production, and other private contributions, should cover the building costs.

When finished, the chemistry building will be the most visible of the many benefits Holton's team has delivered to FSU.
Since Holton and his team made the discovery of a synthetic process for producing Taxol, the drug has been used as an economical and effective cancer fighter. Before Holton's work, the taxol compound was produced from Pacific yews, a tree that was limited in supply and expensive to process. But since Holton's synthesized Taxol went on the market, more than 500,000 women have used it in combating advanced breast cancer and ovarian cancer. The drug is now approved for treatment of early-stage breast cancer.

Moreover, Holton and his research team have found new uses for Taxol. It promises to be effective in treating cancers of the lung, colon, prostate and pancreas, as well as fighting Alzheimer's disease and polycystic kidney diseases.
Holton has said that the results of his team's discovery are "mind-boggling."

"And my mind is the most boggled of the bunch," he said.
So far FSU has as many as 60 patents pending from spin-off research Holton and his team have conducted on Taxol.
Along with an enhanced reputation, FSU's benefit from Holton's research has been, plain and simply, millions of dollars.
FSU reported receiving $46.6 million in 1998. Only the University of California System (with 10 branches and $73 million in royalties) and Columbia University with $61.6 million in royalties, received more. Florida State has been placed third in the nation for earning research dollars from royalties.

The move up was a climb over such giants as Johns Hopkins and Sloan Kettering Institute for Cancer Research.
"Bob Holton's work demonstrates the power of university work to improve the quality of life," said John Fraser, director of FSU's Office of Technology Transfer, which manages the research team's patents.
Meanwhile, Holton has become a millionaire professor.
Between 1993 and 1998, his work as an organic chemist has reaped him an income of $25 million to supplement his salary as a professor, according to a Boston Globe report.

By contrast, though, Bristol-Meyers, which manufactures Taxol, made an estimated $323 million from its sales in one year alone: 1997.
Holton has worked in Tallahassee for 15 years. He returned to FSU in 1985 as a professor and researcher.

It was a return home of sorts. In 1970 and 1971, Holton had been a graduate student at Florida State, earning both his master's and doctorate in chemistry.

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