Exploiting divergent biology of two fission yeasts to understand membrane function

Every living cell is wrapped in a greasy film of fat-like molecules called lipids, and this research will figure out exactly how the mix of those lipids controls what the film does. The problem is that while scientists know that getting the lipid recipe wrong causes disease—from diabetes to neurodegeneration—they cannot explain *how* lipid composition dictates membrane behaviour. The difficulty is that a cell's lipid mix is tangled up with its metabolism and regulation, making cause and effect impossible to tease apart. This project sidesteps that mess by comparing two species of fission yeast that naturally have very different lipid compositions but are otherwise easy to genetically manipulate. By reverse-engineering one yeast's lipid recipe into the other, the team can watch what happens to membrane properties and cellular function. This is fundamental science with no immediate practical application. The goal is to discover core principles: how the shape of lipid molecules changes membrane physics, how genetic networks evolved to keep lipid balance, and whether new lipid-making abilities drove the evolution of new cellular pathways. Past work on yeast membrane biology has revealed mechanisms of cholesterol transport and drug resistance that later informed human medicine. A deeper grasp of lipid rules could eventually help design better drug-delivery nanoparticles or understand metabolic disease origins.