Discovering Novel Protein Folding Phenotypes of Wild Yeast

Yeast species have been used by humans for over millennia in food and drink preparation. However, they are also a powerful model system to tease out the genetic and molecular details of protein folding. Research labs utilize yeast as a model system to study several cellular mechanisms, but this entire body of work comes from just two different yeast strains. And yet, wild yeast grow everywhere in our everyday environments outside of the research lab; nature has provided rich genetic diversity among these yeast species that go unstudied in a research setting. In this COEX course, you will investigate novel protein-folding phenotypes in these unidentified wild yeast strains.