IWGSC workshop at PAG 2020

The IWGSC has led the effort to develop a high quality, reference sequence of the large, complex (hexaploid), bread wheat genome: IWGSC RefSeq v1.0 and annotation v1.1. This year's workshop will include a presentation of the latest achievement, IWGSC RefSeq v2.0, which filled some of the gaps in v1.0 and was released recently by the IWGSC. The release to the scientific community of the reference sequence of Chinese spring in 2017 has led to significant advances in wheat genomics and some of these will be highlighted in the workshop. These include genomics assisted breeding for grain yield, stress resilience, and quality; releasing natural variation in bread wheat by modulating meiotic crossovers; 1000 wheat exomes that is empowering wild emmer introgression into bread wheat; and the search for an immortal hybrid through homeologous epistasis in wheat. As usual, the workshop also includes the IWGSC Early Career Award and travel stipend recipient with this year’s talk focused on the serine protease inhibitor family. This award is given to a young scientist nominated by anyone in the wheat community and selected by the IWGSC leadership in recognition of outstanding achievement.