The University of Oxford Botanic Garden is the oldest botanic garden in the UK. It was founded in 1621 as a physic garden—a place to grow and study plants used in medicine. More than 400 years later, our collaboration with the Botanic Garden celebrates this continuing connection between plants, molecules and medicines.
With the support of colleagues at the Botanic Garden, medicinal plant beds have been curated and planted around the Department and our café. As well as enriching these spaces, the plants provide an opportunity to discover some of the fascinating chemistry hidden within the natural world.
Dr Lizzie Burns has drawn and painted some of the molecules found in these plants, with accompanying explanatory text exploring their connections with pharmacology and medicine. Her molecular artwork can also be found around the Department café. Some of the plant labels developed through the project have been displayed at the Botanic Garden, inviting visitors to discover the chemicals contained within familiar plants and their connections with medicines used today.
Among the molecules and plants explored is digitoxin in foxgloves, which has played an important role in the treatment of heart conditions; mulberry, connected with the development of miglustat as the first approved substrate reduction therapy drug for treating lysosomal storage diseases; and willow and meadowsweet, both associated with salicylates and the history of aspirin.
Another powerful example is the yew tree. Yews are the natural source of compounds that led to the development of taxol as a medicine used in chemotherapy. Former Botanic Garden curator Mark Brent has described how discovering this connection can be particularly meaningful for visitors whose lives have been touched by cancer treatment.
Through the project, we hope to encourage people to look at plants in a different way—not only for their beauty, but as remarkable sources of molecules that have helped shape modern medicine.
We are very grateful to Professor Simon Hiscock, Director of Oxford Botanic Garden and Arboretum, and to Mark Brent, during his time as curator of the Botanic Garden, for their enthusiasm, expertise and support for this collaboration.
