ABSTRACT
In the nineteenth century, the discipline of biochemistry took shape with the discoveries of the fermentative activity of cell-free yeast extract and the enzyme systems responsible for alcoholic fermentation. In a recent and wider sense, the fermentation industry has extended to production of various metabolites, cell constituents, and cell mass, the bioconversion of organic substances, in which yeasts play a significant role. With the application of genetic and molecular techniques, industrial fermentation has been transformed into biotechnology. Yeasts have also contributed to a large extent to the development of molecular biology, and they are key players in the science of the twenty-first century, genomics.
