Throughout 2016, Martin, Fred and Gabriel worked relentlessly to first produce the IWGSC Whole Genome Assembly (WGA v0.4) in June and then to further refine it and produce the IWGSC Reference Sequence (RefSeq v1.0), which was made available to the research community in January 2017. Of most importance, it was this team that integrated the whole genome assembly with all of the chromosomal resources that had been developed, including physical maps, BAC sequences, Whole Genome Profiling tags…) and through this task, the quality of the reference was significantly improved.

Martin Mascher is Head of the Domestication Genomics research group at the Leibnitz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK) in Gatersleben, Germany. The group studies domestication and adaptation processes and their interaction with genetic diversity in crops – mainly barley, wheat and rye – and their wild relative.

Frédéric Choulet is Bioinformatics Group Leader of the Genetics Diversity and Ecophysiology of Cereals group at INRA-University Blaise Pascal joint institute GDEC in Clermont-Ferrand, France. He leads projects in wheat genome sequencing and he is particularly interested in understanding the relationship between genome structure, expression, and evolution, mainly focusing on transposable element dynamics and gene duplications.

Gabriel Keeble-Gagnère Is Senior Research Scientist at the Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources in Melbourne, Australia. Since 2013, he has been leading the bioinformatics activities for the Australia-China Centre for Wheat Improvement. This included leading the bioinformatics component of the wheat chromosome 7A assembly effort, as part of the IWGSC. Gabriel is recognized internationally as an authority in wheat bioinformatics.