JIC and CIMMYT are advancing wheat research through molecular breeding, disease surveillance and rapid diagnostics, linking discovery science with farmer-focused delivery to develop more resilient, nutritious wheat varieties.
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The strategic partnership between the John Innes Centre (JIC) and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, CIMMYT, is supporting collaborative research, knowledge exchange and coordinated communications focused on the future of wheat.
Established formally in 2021, the partnership brings together JIC’s focus on upstream research with CIMMYT’s work translating findings to farmers. Its aims include developing and deploying molecular markers for yield, resilience and nutritional traits in wheat, improving breeding speed and accuracy, generating and using wheat diversity, advancing technologies to increase breeding efficiency, and developing rapid disease diagnostics and global surveillance tools.
Two major research initiatives are part of this collaboration. The Global Surveillance Advisory System, led by CIMMYT with a key role for JIC, works to protect wheat and maize harvests from emerging transboundary pests and diseases. It builds on more than 20 years of wheat disease surveillance and now expands coverage across Africa, North America, Latin America and South Asia, while also incorporating disease monitoring for maize, according to a press release.
JIC’s Professor Diane Saunders leads a GSAS work package focused on developing and deploying wheat disease diagnostic tools, including the MARPLE Diagnostics platform, which enables rapid field-based identification of wheat rust strains.
The Global Wheat Health Alliance brings together advances in wheat disease resistance with research on pathogen evolution, with the aim of accelerating the delivery of new resistant varieties to farmers. According to JIC Director Professor Cristóbal Uauy, the two initiatives connect discovery science with global surveillance and breeding efforts, creating a more integrated pipeline from fundamental research through to impact for farmers facing increasing disease threats.
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