Dr. Jason Zurn with the WGRC received 3^rd place for the post-doc/grad student oral presentation competition at the 17^th 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 a wild wheat relative and provides resistance to all known wheat stem rust races, including those from the highly virulent Ug99 group. Sr39 was found to encode a unique protein fusion that was present in ancient grass species but was lost during wheat evolution. The cloning of Sr39 represents an exciting new opportunity to explore disease resistance evolution in wheat and is another effective gene that breeders can use to improve disease resistance in Kansas wheat.