top of page
Beyond bread: How Baker’s yeast can be used to understand cell biology
Our research
Is centred on 1) understanding fundamental processes that move molecules from one location to another inside biological cells and 2) developing microscopy and analysis tools to understand these processes. This approach has successfully made many discoveries that help understanding biological processes in the context of human health and disease, primarily using a genetic model: budding yeast (the same species used in the baking and brewing industries, and in many of your kitchens).
Despite several Nobel prizes being awarded in the Physiology or Medicine category for discoveries in yeast, their benefit to biomedical science is commonly overlooked. Our public engagement activities aim to remedy this lack of appreciation, in addition to showcasing how technical, physical, and mathematical based approaches feed into modern day cell biology.
These events could not have been possible without the work put in by lab members to help prepare for and execute the sessions (details below). Additionally, we are very grateful to The Genetics Society and the Biology Department at the University of York for funds to cover the various costs.
The team
Equally important to the success of these events were the contributions from everyone in the lab! From Katherine Paine creating an easy to digest presentation to Kamilla Laidlaw fine tuning the recipe for a vegan friendly edible cytoplasm and to everyone who actually came to the school and helped perform the activities - including some schools that were in distant towns and cities!
Understanding the building blocks of life
Introduction to the basic concepts of studying biology at the cellular level. What cell types exist and what different jobs do these different cells do. We also discuss how organisms like human beings are made up of many trillions of cells! This means biological cells are very small and need instruments like microscopes to even be observed! We use some local, national and global populations to try and appreciate the scale of cells in a human! Finally, we discuss how many cells across a very broad range of organisms share many features.
What are cells?
Eukaryotic cells are a special group of cells that are found in many diverse organisms such as animals (humans, dogs, fish and birds), plants (trees, roses, mosses, algae) and fungi (yeasts, mushrooms). Despite comprising very different organisms, these eukaryotic cells share many features, like the organised compartments inside each cell.
Some of the common features inside eukaryotic cells include different compartments that perform specific tasks. For example, the ‘nucleus’ is like the command centre of the cell, where all the information (DNA) is stored that holds the instructions for how the cell should behave. The ‘endoplasmic reticulum’ and ‘Golgi’ are like a transport system that move newly synthesised material about the cell, including sending it outside of the cell. The ‘mitochondria’ is considered the boiler room of the cell, as it produces energy. A final example is the ‘lysosome’ is like a rubbish bin or recycling centre for material that is no longer required and can be destroyed.
Cells are very small, we discuss how many cells make up different organisms (and try to appreciate this scale) and then discuss how cells can be observed under a microscope.
How can we use microscopes to see cells?
We discuss how famous scientists used to draw what they observed down a microscope. Then we provide children with the amazing FoldScope paper microscopes to observe a large number of different samples that span biology. We provide every child with a paper microscope to take home (so far we have distributed 100s).
The children draw what they see - this is super fun and we are never not amazed by some of the amazing observations and recreations!
We then move on to an activity to appreciate how cells are organised and how very different species of plants and animals actually share many similarities at the cellular level. To ensure this information is conveyed effectively, we create vegan friendly edible cells - that are often quickly consumed at the end of the lesson.
Impact
Performing these events was extremely rewarding, far beyond simply teaching children about science. There were countless brilliant and unexpected questions, wondering what we each enjoyed at school, what career paths are open to scientists, and how many biological cells are found in a typical blue whale.
Similarly, we have had so many positive comments from children, parents and educators.
In an effort to be more quantitative in our evaluations of the student experience, we decided to avoid simply having children press a button on an iPad like a customer satisfaction survey leaving a motorway service station. Instead, the amazing and wonderful Mark Bentley, from the University of York Biology Workshop, created these re-usable perspex survey boxes. Additionally, he created white tokens (to assess educational benefit) and orange tokens (to asses enjoyment), which we used to perform two quick polls near the end of each session.
I think the results speak for themselves. We hope to raise more funding in the future to perform these events - and distribute more paper microscopes - to more children!
bottom of page