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2017 was a pivotal, exciting year for the IWGSC.

When the Consortium was set up in 2005 with the goal of producing a reference sequence of bread wheat, it was considered, if not impossible, at least totally unrealistic. Now, after 12 years, we reached this goal.

In January 2017, we provided pre-publication access to IWGSC RefSeq v1.0, the reference genome sequence of bread wheat. The quality of the reference sequence is unprecedented and demonstrates the importance of BAC libraries, physical maps, and chromosome-based resources. This was followed in June with the release of an annotation of RefSeq v1.0. We submitted a manuscript outlining the analysis of the reference sequence and accompanying resources to a scientific journal mid-December.

We are entering an exciting time for wheat researchers and breeders.

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