When Joseph Schechter began exploring. Saccharomyces cerevisiae genomes as a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton University, he had a few dozen yeast isolates. “It was 2005 and high-throughput sequencing was just starting to emerge. Now we have the ability to do large-scale discovery,” says Schechter, professor of genetics and genomics at the University of Strasbourg and recipient of the 2026 Genetics Society of America Medal.
He started his lab at the University of Strasbourg in 2013 and the number of yeast genomes he sequenced soon reached more than 1,000 sequences. This collection of sequences, called the 1,002 Yeast Genome Project, includes strains from around the world and represents different ecological niches, including wine, sake, and baker’s yeasts, as well as yeasts found in nature. The team published this work in 2018, resulting in more than 1,000 citations to date.
“Joseph’s work was fundamental in expanding our yeast research program from a cross between two strains to a population-scale approach,” says Schacherer’s postdoctoral advisor Leonid Kruglyak, Distinguished Professor of Human Genetics and Biochemistry and Chair of Human Genetics at UCLA. “He has since become a leader in using population and functional genomics to understand genetic and phenotypic variation in yeast.”
Kurgliak described Schechter as someone who “wasn’t afraid to tackle the big questions.” And indeed, his collection of more than 1,000 yeast genomes was intended to answer a much larger question: Can we use genotypes to predict phenotypes? “That’s something that’s really difficult because most of the time we have complex traits. [involving a large number of genes]” Schacherer explains. Additionally, Schacherer and his lab of about 20 researchers are also studying the many layers of regulation that sit between genotypes and phenotypes by looking at the transcriptome, proteome, and metabolome.
Schacherer explains that a common way to study populations is to look for single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). This is the case in human genomics where obtaining telomere-to-telomere sequences has been difficult. In a follow-up to the 1,002 Yeast Genomes Project, Schechter’s team used long-read sequencing to obtain telomere-to-telomere sequences from around 1,086 yeast genomes to examine the effects of copy number and structural variations on phenotypes. This was something they couldn’t do with just a short reading sequence. “What’s really interesting is that these structural variations influence phenotypic diversity,” says Schacherer. The team showed that structural variation and small insertion-deletion variations allowed them to better estimate the heritability of traits than using SNPs alone.
This diversity of yeast genomes captured in the 1,002 Yeast Genomes Project adds a much-needed resource to the yeast community, which previously focused on the reference strain S288C and its derivatives, explains Charles Boone, professor of molecular genetics at the University of Toronto and a Schrecker Bor. However, this approach had limitations—yeast populations are quite diverse, come from different ecological and geographic niches, and characteristics in these yeasts may not be represented in reference strains. Boon called the work “a huge contribution to the Khmer community”. “There are many avenues that open up with the establishment of a collection of 1,000 wild yeasts that we can study in detail,” he adds.
When Schechter is not in his lab, he teaches courses focused on classical genetics and quantitative genetics at the University of Strasbourg. As a member of the university’s Faculty of Life Sciences, he developed several new courses in genetics and genomics. “I like to talk about my research while teaching,” says Schacherer. “It’s part of our duty to educate the next generation about research or genetics or science. I think that’s really important.”
Either in the lab or in his courses, Schacherer says mentoring and teaching are central to his scientific philosophy. Many members of his lab have come from courses he has taught, and to date he has trained 13 graduate students and 10 postdoctoral researchers. Schacherer says the GSA medal “represents the achievement of an entire lab and all the people who have been involved in the group over the years.”
Please join us in congratulating Joseph Schechter on receiving the 2026 GSA Medal for his influential contributions to modern genetics.
