Yeast plays a vital role across a wide range of industries, including food and beverage production, biofuels, healthcare and agriculture. Despite its widespread use, much of yeast’s natural genetic diversity remains largely untapped. This underexplored biodiversity limits the full potential of yeast in driving innovation and improving industrial processes. 

A major challenge in yeast biotechnology is the current lack of comprehensive data on yeast biodiversity and the difficulty in linking specific genetic traits to desirable industrial outcomes – such as improved flavor profiles, accelerated fermentation or enhanced biofuel yields. Existing yeast collections are often expensive, limited in scope and not tailored to regional or emerging industry needs. 

This project aims to harness advanced genomic and phenotyping technologies to discover, characterize and catalog novel yeast strains with unique and valuable traits. This has the potential to unlock new applications that enhance product quality, increase production efficiency and contribute to both human health and environmental sustainability. 

To address this gap, researchers at UBC along with partners Renaissance Bioscience will establish a dedicated yeast biobank, expanding the available genetic resources for industrial and research use, with a particular focus on benefiting British Columbia and broader markets. Leveraging tools such as artificial intelligence, metagenomics and high-throughput phenotyping, this project aims to identify correlations between yeast genotypes and functional traits. This will enable the targeted development of yeast strains optimized for specific applications across sectors.