We think of yeast as an ingredient in bread and beer, but Saccharomyces cerevisiae (baker’s yeast) is in fact one of the most studied organisms in science. This single-cell organism is inexpensive to work with and easy to study. It is so easy to work with that some scientists carry out yeast experiments at home. It’s also easy to modify genetically, by simply removing or adding one or more of its roughly six thousand genes.
