As a unicellular organism, Saccharomyces cerevisiae is an ideal model system for illumination of substantial cellular functions of eukaryotes. Meanwhile, this organism is also an important microbial cell factory in biotechnology. On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the magazine Microbiology China, the research advances of molecular genetics and breeding of S. cerevisiae in china in the past 40 years, such as tools for genetic manipulation, functional analysis of specific genes, the genetic basis and regulatory mechanism underlying the important biological processes, development and application of breeding approaches, were reviewed here.