HAPPY about Yeasts - Speeding up research and development with yeast age determination

Everyone is familiar with brewer's yeast. Besides beer and bread, Saccharomyces cerevisiae is used to make many other products, from flavourings and sweeteners to pharmaceuticals and biofuels. All of this requires healthy, young brewer's yeast cells!  But beyond the industrial aspects, the age of yeast cells is an important feature in the study of ageing itself. Nicole Paczia and David Adam can determine the age of yeast cells using their microfluidic method HAPPY. The project has won numerous start-up awards and shows how basic research can lead to exciting applications.

Dr Niocle Paczia is the head of the Metabolomics Service Facility at the MPI Marburg and Dr David Adam is a postdoctoral scientist.