Camptothecin is an alkaloid which was isolated in 1966 by Wall and co-workers from Camptotheca acuminata, a tree native to China, and shown to possess unique anticancer properties. Hence, over the subsequent three decades its relatively simple structure has been the objective of many total syntheses using a variety of approaches. Structural features common to Camptothecin and vincoside/strictosidine lactams, prompted suggestions as to their biogenetic relationship, which was corroborated by subsequent in vivo incorporation of labelled strictosidine lactam into Camptothecin. It thus belongs to the monoterpenoid indole alkaloid family, derived from tryptamine and secologanin, but little is known about the details of its biosynthesis beyond that strictosidine and strictosidine lactam are involved in the biosynthetic process. Once it had been established that the glycosidic lactams were involved in the biogenesis of camptothecin, it seemed an interesting undertaking to transform this fundamental skeleton into Camptothecin itself whilst following the postulated biogenetic pathway. The biomimetic synthesis of camptothecin has taken a long time starting in 1972 by Eraser and finishing in 1997 by Liu. This paper discloses the detail of this long story with some previously unreported results

Key words: camptothecin, ANTICARCINOGEN, ALKALOID, INDOLE