TAU researchers' article on wheat rust selected amongst Genome’s Editor’s Choice for 2014

The Manna Center Program for Food Safety and Security would like to congratulate TAU's Dr. Eitan Millet, Dr. Jacob Manisterski, Dr. Assaf Distelfeld, Ms. Pnina Ben-Yehuda and graduate student and Manna Center scholarship recipient Ms. Jasline Deek, and their partners, on the selection of their paper as one of Genome’s Editor’s Choice papers for 2014. The paper, titled “Introgression of leaf rust and stripe rust resistance from Sharon goatgrass (Aegilops sharonensis Eig) into bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)” is significant for improving crop resisitence and plant disease, paving the way to improve food security.

In lay language, the article is summarized as such: “Despite the high frequency of disease resistance found in Sharon goatgrass (Aegilops sharonensis) it is an untapped species in wheat improvement. This paper by Millet et al. used chromosome engineering technologies to overcome natural barriers for transferring stripe rust and leaf rust resistance into a wheat elite cultivar and mapped the introgressed segment.” To read the full article, click here.

The writers are affiliated with our longstanding partner, Tel Aviv University's Institute for Ceral Crops Improvement, and the Department of Molecular Biology and Ecology of Plants.

We congratulate Eitan, Jacob, Assaf, Pnina and Jasline and their partners for this significant and esteemed achievement!