Nature is an inspiring source in drug discovery which constantly reveals new complex chemical structures of natural products that inherit attractive chemical challenges for organic chemists to synthesize them. Taxol is a unique natural product that possesses impressive biological properties and a very tempting chemical structure that motivated organic chemists all over the world to enter the race for synthesizing it. The total synthesis of this highly oxygenated diterpene was completed by 11 different research groups starting from Holton (1994) to Chida (2022). This review article demonstrates the various retrosynthetic analysis of Taxol, the actual synthetic routes to it and highlights the key steps in each synthesis. It also provides a critical review of the advantages and disadvantages in all the synthetic routes in terms of number of steps, yields and the synthetic challenges.

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Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a devastating neurodegenerative disease in which the motor neuron circuitry displays progressive degeneration, affecting mostly the motor neurons in the brain and in the spinal cord. There are no effective cures, albeit three drugs, riluzole, edaravone, and AMX0035 (a combination of sodium phenylbutyrate and taurursodiol), have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration, with limited improvement in patients. There is an urgent need to build better and more effective treatment strategies for ALS. Since the disease is very heterogenous, numerous approaches have been explored, such as targeting genetic mutations, decreasing oxidative stress and excitotoxicity, enhancing mitochondrial function and protein degradation mechanisms, and inhibiting neuroinflammation. In addition, various chemical libraries or previously identified drugs have been screened for potential repurposing in the treatment of ALS. Here, we review previous drug discovery efforts targeting a variety of cellular pathologies that occur from genetic mutations that cause ALS, such as mutations in SOD1, C9orf72, FUS, and TARDP‐43 genes. These mutations result in protein aggregation, which causes neuronal degeneration. Compounds used to target cellular pathologies that stem from these mutations are discussed and comparisons among different preclinical models are presented. Because the drug discovery landscape for ALS and other motor neuron diseases is changing rapidly, we also offer recommendations for a novel, more effective, direction in ALS drug discovery that could accelerate translation of effective compounds from animals to patients.