Figure Legends
FIGURE 1 Current global political, economic, demographic, environmental and technological future-shaping structural forces are driving an extended period of significant uncertainty, insecurity and instability in today’s unsettled world. Although this ‘permacrisis’ of disharmony, fragmentation, disequilibrium, contestation and need for continual adaptation brings daunting challenges at multiple fronts, it too also might reveal great unexpected potential opportunities for technological developments and breakthroughs that could advance synthetic yeast research and human development over the next few decades.
FIGURE 2 The convergence of synthetic biology technologies (e.g. DNA reading, writing and editing) engineering, computational and informational technology is revolutionising life sciences, including yeast research. Transformative breakthroughs that have the potential to shift frontiers in yeast research are likely to be catalyzed by the age-old principle of consilience―scientific advances and evidence from unrelated specialized fields is a powerful dynamo for the acceleration of progress and solutions to grand challenges.
FIGURE 3 The fast-expanding repertoire of biodesign tools are moving the barriers beyond the frontiers of yeast research. These novel concepts include the construction of fully synthetic yeast genomes, minimal genomes; supernumerary pan-genome neochromosomes; synthetic metagenomes; and synthetic yeast communities, synthetic yeast biosensors and even specialized synthetic yeast strains to augment the supply of fermented food during long-range space travel. These concepts are at varying stages of development with plenty of technological pitfalls to overcome before such model synthetic model strains and systems would illuminate some of the yeasts’ genetic blind spots and ill-understood aspects of yeast resilience and fermentation performance.
FIGURE 4 The futuristic concept of building a fully synthetic cell as a multipurpose platform is at a very early stage of development. The ‘learning by building’ approach taken by yeast researchers is central to the construction of a synthetic cell from scratch.
FIGURE 5 The ‘compass of responsible innovation’ guides researchers involved in frontier science toward a process aimed at creativity, opportunities and innovation for science that are socially desirable and conducted in the wider public interest.