S. cerevisiae

S. (saccharomyces) cerevisiae is type of yeast that divides by budding, commonly used as baker's yeast.

It was the first eukaryotic organism to have its genome sequenced.

It has key characteristics which make it a useful model organism for work in laboratories:

• it's a unicellular eukaryote that can be studied under the microscope.
• it's small, so is easy store
• it grows fast, having a rough generation time of 80minutes
• it can be genetically modified relatively easily, and has been extensively studied in the past, so lots is known about its genes. 
• it shares homology with humans and has been used specifically looking at the cell cycle and cancer.  
• it's non-pathogenic