The renaissance of yeasts as microbial factories in the modern age of biomanufacturing

Abstract Yeasts are essential for many processes, including the production of some of our most beloved foods and beverages. Less is known to the public about the far‐reaching impacts of yeasts on other products such as biofuels, pharmaceuticals, and industrial products. By leveraging and combining newly discovered yeast genetic diversity with now affordable and efficient genetic engineering and synthetic biology tools, academic and industrial yeast labs have designed yeast cell factories for a wide range of novel applications such as the production of medicines, components of human breast milk, heme for meat substitutes, bioplastics, and other biomaterials. This review covers the newest technologies developed for yeast research including synthetic biology and their use in the engineering of yeast cell factories for emerging applications.