Baker's yeast as a model organism

Most of you are probably familiar with baker’s yeast from its applications in home-cooking, industrial food processing, brewing, and fermentation. But did you know that this micro-organism is also an excellent model in various branches of biological research, including the study of human ageing?

How could a mundane singe-cell organism like yeast reflect the biology of such an advanced species as us, humans? In his lecture Michael Chang will show you that both species possess a very similar cell nucleus, making them both eukaryotes that share a common ancestor early in evolution.

This evolutionary relatedness also explains that yeast cells and human cells show similar ageing processes as we see in dividing and resting cells. Michael will introduce you to these different ageing processes like replicative ageing, chronological ageing, telomere-attrition-induced ageing, and how these are studied in yeast.