On Aug. 1, 2024, the Van Andel Institute reported that humans and baker’s yeast have more in common than meets the eye, including an important mechanism that helps ensure DNA is copied correctly.

The findings visualized for the first time a molecular complex — called CTF18-RFC in humans and Ctf18-RFC in yeast — that loads a “clamp” onto DNA to keep parts of the replication machinery from falling off the DNA strand. The studies were published in the journals Science and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.