‘The awesome power of yeast’

Abstract

Yeast is one of the most useful microorganisms in society. Aside from the well known traditional uses in beer, wine and bread making, yeast is currently providing new opportunities for our society. This article examines some of those new opportunities which include using yeast as a model organism, yeast as a cell factory for valuable proteins, including vaccines and new therapeutics, and yeast as a very convenient tool for teaching.

Keywords

• ageing research
• cancer research
• drug discovery
• gene engineering
• mitochondrial function
• Nobel prizes