News

Anna Backhaus has been awarded the 2026 IWGSC–Feuillet Early Career Award and will receive her award at the Plant & Animal Genome Conference (PAG) in San Diego, California (USA) in January 2026. She will also present a talk during the IWGSC main workshop on Saturday 10 January 2026.

The following scientist will present their research at the IWGSC Workshop at PAG33, on Saturday 10 January 2026.

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 as well as IWGSC RefSeq v2.1 and accompanying annotation. The IWGSC began a new wheat diversity project to bring to platinum quality the reference sequence and 12 landraces that reflect the breadth of wheat diversity. In the IWGSC workshop this year, there will be presentations on latest frontiers in genome biology, fundamental and applied, leading to significant advances in wheat science. As usual, the workshop will also includes the presentation of the IWGSC-Feuillet Early Career Award. 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.

Nominations are now being accepted for the prestigious IWGSC-Feuillet Early Career Award. The recipient will speak at the IWGSC workshop that will be held at the Plant and Animal Genome Conference (PAG33) in January 2026.

Michael Alaux is the Deputy Director of URGI (Unit Resources Genomics-Info) at the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food, and Environment (INRAE). He is the scientific coordinator of the bioinformatics platform services. URGI hosts and manages the official IWGSC Data Repository, providing the wheat community with access to all data generated by IWGSC projects.

A round-up of the IWGSC activities in 2024: Data & Highlights

The IWGSC celebrated its 20 years during the 2025 Plant and Animal Genome Conference in San Diego (CA, USA)

The International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium turns 20 in January 2025!

The wheat reference genome sequence (IWGSC RefSeq v1.0 & v2.1) has provided a foundation that has propelled recent advances in research and improvement of wheat. For the Structural and Functional Genomics Workshop, continued advances in research and understanding will require new experimental and computational approaches to structurally identify and assign function to genes (both coding and non-coding) as well as regulatory elements and epigenetic states. Presentations in this workshop will include the advances in structural and functional genomics as well as a presentation on assembling complex genomes.

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 as well as IWGSC RefSeq v2.1 and accompanying annotation. The IWGSC began a new wheat diversity project to bring to platinum quality the reference sequence and 12 landraces that reflect the breadth of wheat diversity. In the IWGSC workshop this year, there will be a key presentation on the genomics of the AE Watkins wheat landrace collection, several talks on advances in functional genomics, as well as a presentation on a snRNA-SEQ atlas. As usual, the workshop also includes the presentation of the IWGSC-Feuillet Early Career Award, Delfi Dorussen,on whether transcriptional compensation facilitates functional redundancy in wheat. 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.