Yeasts play a central role in industrial biotechnology and basic
genetic research. Recently, we have seen an expansion of
their traditional role in food and wine making to one of industrial
chemical and protein production. This transition is, in part,
enabled by a convergence of new capacities that have shaped
the ability to rewire this organism. Namely, the past decade has
seen genome sequence availability, cheap DNA synthesis, rapid
assembly technologies and newfound capacity to understand
synthetic parts and build these parts into complex pathways
and circuits. Collectively, these capabilities embody the central
tenets of the emerging field of ‘synthetic biology’.