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.