I hope this helps -

A recently discovered red oak tree sap, which is anticipated to advance experimentation with natural substances in order to create cancer medicines, will be able to provide chemists with a more potent mixture to work from than the sap extracted from other trees can, and at a lower cost

The sap from the red oak tree is compared to an other sap from the other trees

Does it help?

Lets parse it :

recently discovered red oak tree sap(subject), which is anticipated to advance experimentation with natural substances in order to create cancer medicines,(modifier - non essential type). Here the whole is acting as the subject

will be able - verb ( Intransitive)

to provide chemists with a more potent mixture ( adverb modifying the intransitive verb "will be able")

to work from than the sap extracted from other trees can, and at a lower cost - ( another infinite phrase modifying the verb in noun form "to provide") --- again parsing ---

to work - infinitive
from than the sap extracted from other trees can - adverb for the verb in noun form " to work".

Hope this helps !!

i think i did not explain my query clearly. my doubt is if i remove the underlined part then sentence is more smooth and conveys the same intent. So, why is underlined part present and if it is just a modifier then wouldn't to work with be better than to work from


A recently discovered red oak tree sap will be able to provide chemists with a more potent mixture to work from than the sap extracted from other trees can, and at a lower cost