Zymase was first isolated from the yeast cell in 1897 by a German chemist named Eduard Buchner who fermented sugar in the laboratory without living cells, leading to 1907 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Cell-free fermentation experiment

The experiment for which Buchner won the Nobel Prize consisted of producing a cell-free extract of yeast cells and showing that this "press juice" could ferment sugar. This dealt yet another blow to vitalism by showing that the presence of living yeast cells was not needed for fermentation. The cell-free extract was produced by combining dry yeast cells, quartz and kieselguhr and then pulverizing the yeast cells with a mortar and pestle. This mixture would then become moist as the yeast cells' contents would come out of the cells. Once this step was done, the moist mixture would be put through a press and when this resulting "press juice" had glucose, fructose, or maltose added, carbon dioxide was seen to evolve, sometimes for days. Microscopic investigation revealed no living yeast cells in the extract.

One interesting thing is that Buchner hypothesized that yeast cells secrete proteins into their environment in order to ferment sugars, instead of the fermentation occurring inside the yeast cells, which is the actual mechanism.

British chemist Sir Arthur Harden divided zymase into two varieties (dialyzable and nondialyzable) in 1905.

Zymase is also the brand name of the generic enzyme mixture pancrelipase, a dietary supplement containing the enzymes amylase, peptidase, and lipase. It is sold to help digestion in people who do not produce enough of their own digestive enzymes.