LIFE WITH 6000 GENES – celebrating 30 years since the sequencing of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae genome. Yeast is known to the public for being the major player in the production of wine, beer, and bread. Yeast was the cradle and stage of fermentation chemistry first, with the studies of Christian Hansen and Louis Pasteur, and then of genetics and genomics.

The first complete sequence of the yeast genome was published and showcased worldwide in 1996. It was the first eukaryotic genome sequenced, and the discovery served as a jumpstart for the sequencing of the human genome as well as of other fungal, plant, and animal genomes.
From a technological standpoint, the S. cerevisiae sequence was instrumental to the development of genome-wide analysis technologies, such as DNA microarrays, Next Generation Sequencing, and the computational tools used today for interpreting genome-wide data.

The conference gathers the main actors of the discovery, celebrates this fundamental achievement, and will present the current state of yeast genomics research to specialists from all over the world, discussing the importance of moving from the genome of the type strain to pangenomics, and synthetic
biology.