Arbor Biosciences Joins the International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium

The IWGSC is an international, collaborative consortium of wheat growers, plant scientists, and public and private breeders dedicated to the development of genomic resources for wheat scientists and breeders. These resources aim at facilitating the production of wheat varieties better adapted to environmental challenges, with higher yields, enhanced nutritional quality, and improved sustainability.

Sponsors are an essential part of the IWGSC. They participate in IWGSC-led projects and, as members of the Coordinating Committee, they help shape the IWGSC priorities, strategic plans, and activities. Jacob Enk, NGS R&D Manager, will represent Arbor Biosciences in the IWGSC Coordinating Committee.

“We are very pleased to have Arbor Biosciences come on board,” said Kellye Eversole, Executive Director of the IWGSC. “We have been working with the Arbor Biosciences team for a while now and they have been instrumental in providing our members and the wheat community with state-of-the-art genomic resources. Their leadership will be an invaluable addition to the IWGSC Coordinating Committee as we move forward with our activities to further build the foundation to accelerate wheat breeding.”

“We look forward to continuing what has already been a wonderfully productive relationship with the IWGSC,” said Jacob Enk. “Our aim at Arbor is to provide cost-effective scientific tools for crop breeding and genomics. Becoming a sponsoring partner of the IWGSC helps to serve that goal through providing insights on exactly what its active, well-organized research community needs to be successful."

The IWGSC and Arbor Biosciences have had a fruitful partnership since 2018 that led to the release, in October 2019, of Arbor Biosciences’ myBaits® Expert Wheat Exome capture panel designed using the reference genome for bread wheat cv. Chinese Spring, IWGSC RefSeq v1.0, which was fully annotated and published by IWGSC members. The panel utilizes over two million probes to cover 200 megabases of high confidence exons in the genome and is compatible with both hexaploid and tetraploid cultivars of wheat. Arbor Biosciences is currently developing new iterations and expansions of the exome panel based on requirements of IWGSC members.

About Arbor Biosciences

Arbor Biosciences, a division of Chiral Technologies, Inc. and a subsidiary of Daicel Corporation, is a development and manufacturing company founded by scientists to serve our peers in molecular biology applications. We are a passionate organization of scientists determined to deliver cost-effective, user-friendly products to researchers of genetics and synthetic biology. The team at Arbor Biosciences prides themselves on providing exceptional customer service and timely technical support to new or advanced users on our array of products. We routinely collaborate with our customers and research partners to develop innovative solutions to address their unique applications. https://arborbiosci.com/

About the International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium

The IWGSC, with 2,400 members in 70 countries, is an international, collaborative consortium, established in 2005 by a group of wheat growers, plant scientists, and public and private breeders. The goal of the IWGSC is to make a high-quality genome sequence of bread wheat publicly available, in order to lay a foundation for basic research that will enable breeders to develop improved varieties. The IWGSC is a U.S. 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. www.wheatgenome.org