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Warning: Science Ahead


Yeast!!


This is a picture of Saccharomyces cerevisiae cells at 40X magnification on a light microscope. The cells are about 5 um (=0.005 mm) in diameter; that's tiny! (Viruses are even tinier than. I haven't seen them with my own eyes yet, but I hope to one day!)

If you look closely, you can see some cells that are budding (asexual cell division). It is basically a small cell forming off of a large cell, and altogether, looks like a snowman with a disproportionately small head. The cells pictured are one type of haploid (one copy of genetic material). In the presence of another haploid form, they could mate and form diploid cells (two copies of genetic material).

S. cerevisiae was the model organism that I studied in a cell biology lab course I took last fall. I was already familiar with the lab techniques, but experimental design was very new to me. I understood how to design an experiment, but I had never actually designed my own right from the very beginning. It is HARD. There are so many things to consider, and so many things to troubleshoot once a pilot has been done. Through all the challenges and frustrations, the project helped me gain a lot of perspective, and a whole lot of respect for people who work in research.

PS: Yes, this species of yeast is used in brewing beer and baking. :)