Biopharmaceutical protein production by Saccharomyces cerevisiae

In the past few decades there has been an increasing demand of biopharmaceutical proteins in the market. Several types of cell factories are applied to produce different pharmaceutical proteins. However, manufacturers prefer to use a few favorable biological platforms to undertake the production tasks with low cost, high productivity and proper post-translational modifications. The yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae is one of these preferred cell factories as it meets many of the requirements. There are several reports on improvement of recombinant protein production by S. cerevisiae through rational engineering of different stages of the protein secretion pathway. However, recent developments of new technologies like systems biology and synthetic biology open new doors to design S. cerevisiae as an ideal production platform

Cellular Origin, Life in Extreme Habitats and Astrobiology

The problem of the origin of metazoa is becoming more urgent in the context of astrobiology. By now it is clear that clues to the understanding of this crucial transition in the evolution of life can arise in a fourth pathway besides the three possibilities in the quest for simplicity outlined by Bonner in his classical book. In other words, solar system exploration seems to be one way in the long-term to elucidate the simplicity of evolutionary development. We place these ideas in the context of different inheritance systems, namely the genotypic and phenotypic replicators with limited or unlimited heredity, and ask which of these can support multicellular development, and to which degree of complexity. However, the quest for evidence on the evolution of biotas from planets around other stars does not seem to be feasible with present technology with direct visualization of living organisms on exoplanets. But this may be attempted on the Galilean moons of Jupiter where there is a possibility of detecting reliable biomarkers in the next decade with the Europa Jupiter System Mission, in view of recent progress by landing micropenetrators on planetary, or satellite surfaces. Mars is a second possibility in the inner Solar System, in spite of the multiple difficulties faced by the fleet of past, present and future missions. We discuss a series of preliminary ideas for elucidating the origin of metazoan analogues with available instrumentation in potential payloads of feasible space missions to the Galilean moons