Taxol is a well-known effective anticancer compound. Due to the inability to synthesize sufficient quantities of taxol to satisfy commercial demand, a biotechnological approach for a large-scale cell or cell-free system for its production is highly desirable. Several important genes in taxol biosynthesis are currently still unknown and have been shown to be difficult to isolate directly from Taxus, including the gene encoding taxoid 9 alpha-hydroxylase. Ginkgo biloba suspension cells exhibit taxoid hydroxylation activity and provides an alternate means of identifying genes encoding enzymes with taxoid 9 alpha-hydroxylation activity. Through analysis of high throughput RNA sequencing data from G. biloba, we identified two candidate genes with high similarity to Taxus CYP450s. Using in vitro cell-free protein synthesis assays and LC-MS analysis, we show that one candidate that belongs to the CYP716B, a subfamily whose biochemical functions have not been previously studied, possessed 9 alpha-hydroxylation activity. This work will aid future identification of the taxoid 9 alpha-hydroxylase gene from Taxus sp. (C) 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.