The National Fusarium Head Blight Conference took place in Denver, CO December 7-9, 2025 where Jaime Knight presented her poster, “Ancestral Germplasm as a Source of Fusarium Head Blight Resistance in Bread Wheat.” Jaime is a master’s student at the WGRC. Her research primarily focuses on discovering novel genetic sources of Fusarium head blight resistance […]

12.19.2025

Buket Sahin won third place in the competitive poster competition at the Crop Science Society of America (CSSA) 2025 conference held in Salt Lake City, Utah November 9-12, 2025. Her research poster was titled “Genome-Wide Association Study of Stripe Rust Resistance in a Diverse Spring Wheat Panel.” Buket is a graduate research assistant  at the […]

11.14.2025

MANHATTAN, Kan. – Kansas State University researchers and the state’s farmers are putting their collective support behind a project to reduce the allergenicity of gluten in wheat, while maintaining the grain’s ability for bread and other products. Eduard Akhunov, a University Distinguished Professor in K-State’s Department of Plant Pathology, said his team is identifying proteins […]

10.16.2025

The Climate Resilient Cereals Innovation Lab (CRCIL) at Kansas State University convened with international partners in Senegal September 15-19, 2025 to review two years of collaborative research aimed at strengthening food security in challenging climates. Benjamin Osae attended the CRCIL meeting as the representative for the Wheat Genetics Resource Center (WGRC). Representatives from ISRA-CERAAS, Clemson […]

10.15.2025

The Wheat Genetics Resource Center (WGRC) is proud to announce that Dr. Zitong Yu, a postdoctoral fellow, has been awarded second prize in thematic area B of the prestigious Carlotta Award. The award was announced in Bari, Italy last month at the “From Seed to Pasta 5” conference. As a winner of the Carlotta award, […]

10.01.2025

Dr. Akhunov was invited to speak at From Seed to Pasta 5 in Bari, Italy, on September 26, 2025. His talk, “Landscape of Structural Variation in the Wheat Genome: Functional and Phenotypic Consequences,” explored genomic variation in wheat. Dr. Akhunov is a Distinguished Professor and Director of the Wheat Genetics Resource Center (WGRC) at Kansas […]

09.27.2025

This summer the WGRC welcomed Mark Marchetti as an REU student as part of the K-State Plant Pathology Summer Program. The REU program is a U.S. National Science Foundation funded project that supports intensive research by undergraduate students. Mark is a sophomore at Texas A&M studying agronomy, and at the WGRC, he learned about wheat […]

08.07.2025

Dr. Jason Zurn with the WGRC received 3rd place for the post-doc/grad student oral presentation competition at the 17th International Cereal Rusts and Powdery Mildews Conference in Vancouver, Canada. His talk, A protein kinase fusion gene from Aegilops speltoides provides broad resistance against wheat stem rust, reports on the cloning of the stem rust resistance gene Sr39. This gene originates from […]

07.31.2025

The obituary of Dr. Bernd Friebe was published in the Chromosome Research journal. Dr. Friebe was a pioneering cytogeneticist whose distinguished career was marked by groundbreaking contributions.   Bernd served over five decades in editorial roles and was a beloved mentor, colleague, and teacher. Outside the lab, he was a blues guitarist, fossil collector, and devoted […]

06.24.2025

A talented group of three graduate students and two Postdoctoral Fellows served as representatives of the Wheat Genetics Resource Center (WGRC) and Kansas State University at the McFadden Symposium, which took place on March 3-4, 2025 in Lincoln, Nebraska. The researchers shared their latest findings and innovations in wheat genetics research. Each researcher presented compelling […]

04.28.2025

Eduard Akhunov is selected as one of the 2024 American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellows, one of U.S. science’s highest distinctions.   https://www.aaas.org/programs/fellows/2024-aaas-fellows https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adx6365

03.27.2025

During the 2024 budget cycle, the Texas Wheat Producers Board (TWPB) voted to join other state wheat organizations and industry representatives to support the Wheat Genetics Resource Center Industry University Cooperative Research Center (IUCRC). This partnership is a critical step in advancing wheat research on a regional level, with a specific focus on the center’s […]

03.10.2025