Did you know that yeast cells can be used to study diseases in other more complex cells? The single-celled fungus allows researchers to study Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, ALS and other brain diseases with unparalleled speed and scale. Yeast cells are particularly valuable because they grow rapidly, are inexpensive to maintain, and can be genetically modified more readily than other eukaryotic cells. Here’s my recent illustration for The Scientist magazine.

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