News

The IWGSC Wheat Genome Manual and Functional Annotationworkshop at PAG 2019 will take place on Tuesday 15 January 2019 from 1:30 to 6:10pm.

The workshop will examine advances in functional annotation of regions in the reference genome sequence regions which will include gap closure and finishing the genome sequence as well as the functional annotation of the gene space. Generally the regions examined will be in agronomically important regions and we would expect new bioinformatics developments to accelerate the integration of multiple data sets. The IWGSC phase II strategy, post the release of the wheat reference genome (IWGSC RefSeq v1.0), includes developing a pipeline for community generated manual annotation coupled, functional annotation, and annual annotation releases by the IWGSC. The workshop will focus on genome-level studies to facilitate manual and functional annotation, the process of manual annotation, and platforms for annotation and visualization.

The IWGSC scientific workshop at PAG 2019 will take place on Saturday 12 January 2019 from 8:00 to 10:10 am.

The IWGSC led the effort to develop a high quality, reference sequence of the large, complex (hexaploid), bread wheat genome (IWGSC RefSeq v1.0). This year's workshop will include a presentation of a proposed finishing strategy for the genome and one on a new pipeline for wheat and barley sequences that may facilitate the development of the complete wheat pan-genome, both key objectives of IWGSC phase II. With IWGSC RefSeq v1.0 and annotation versions 1.0 and 1.1 available to scientists, significant advances in wheat genomics have been made and the workshop will include talks that highlight some of these. As usual, the workshop also will include a talk by an IWGSC Early Career Award recipient. This is given to a young scientist nominated by anyone in the wheat community and selected by the IWGSC leadership in recognition of outstanding achievement.

Carolina Sansaloni was awarded an IWGSC Early Career Award and will receive her award at the Plant & Animal Genome Conference (PAG) in San Diego, California (USA) in January 2019.

Carolina also received a travel stipend to allowed her to travel to the PAG conference to present a talk during the IWGSC main workshop on Saturday 12 January 2019.

The editors of the Frontiers Research Topic: “ Use of Barley and Wheat Reference Sequences: Downstream Applications in Breeding, Gene Isolation, GWAS and Evolution ” encourage the wheat community to submit articles to the collection.

The wheat genome sequence will contribute to global food security

Bethesda, Maryland, USA – August 16, 2018

The International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium (IWGSC) published today in the international journal Science a detailed description of the genome of bread wheat, the world’s most widely cultivated crop. This work will pave the way for the production of wheat varieties better adapted to climate challenges, with higher yields, enhanced nutritional quality and improved sustainability.

The International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium (IWGSC), is pleased to announce the appointment of Sébastien Praud as a new Board member of the organization.