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Tag: germplasm utilization

Dragan Milic

Written by mcallejas on . Posted in Uncategorized.

Dragan Milic is responsible for providing support to the National Agriculture Research Systems (NARS) in Africa, assisting them in the development of breeding improvement plans aimed at delivering increased genetic gains for smallholder farmers. These enhancement strategies will specifically target product profiles, optimization of breeding schemes, utilization of genotyping, automation, mechanization, appropriate breeding software, and establishment of connections with seed producers.

Milić also extends support to national breeding teams in African countries, implementing a comprehensive internal breeding pipeline optimization plan supported by the Excellence in Breeding platform. Furthermore, he assists national partners in integrating and establishing breeding networks with CGIAR institutes and regional and national collaborators.

Before joining CIMMYT, Dragan Milić spent his professional career at the Institute of Field and Vegetable Crops (IFVCNS) in Novi Sad, Serbia. He served as the Head of the Forage Breeding team at IFVCNS and possesses over 20 years of experience in breeding, seed production, and leadership in conventional and molecular alfalfa/forage breeding. Dragan Milić has been a visiting scientist at the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation and UC Davis through different scholarships funded by the Serbian and US governments.

His main expertise is related to forage and grain legumes breeding, field-based experiment phenotyping, legume genetics, and forage and grain legumes seed systems. He was involved in defining strategies based on conventional and molecular breeding efforts towards variety selection and the development of improved forage/alfalfa germplasm for Southern East Europe and Asia. Dragan is the author of many alfalfa/grain legumes varieties released in Serbia, Belarus, Morocco, Turkey, Ukraine, and the EU.

Harish Gandhi

Written by Sarah McLaughlin on . Posted in Uncategorized.

Harish Gandhi is a Breeding Lead for Dryland Legumes and Cereals in CIMMYT’s Genetic Resources program in Kenya. He is a transformative plant breeding and genetics professional, with more than 15 years experience of driving genetic gains, building effective teams, and pioneering innovative research and development.

The importance of germplasm in protecting nature

Written by Sarah McLaughlin on . Posted in News.

At COP15, Sarah Hearne gives an overview of the CGIAR Allele Mining Initiative projects and their potential role in conserving biodiversity and nature. (Photo: Michael Halewood/Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT)

Prioritizing the protection of biodiversity is an essential part of mitigating and adapting to the effects of climate change and global warming. At the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) (COP15), held between December 7-19 in Montreal, Canada, emphasis was placed on the important role of nature in meeting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), proposing the adoption of a bold global biodiversity framework that addresses the key drivers of nature loss to secure health and wellbeing for humanity and for the planet.

On December 7, scientists from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), together with colleagues from CGIAR research centers and the secretariat of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, presented at a COP15 side event on how Digital sequence information (DSI) is changing the way genetic resources are used in agricultural research and development and implications for new benefit-sharing norms.

The session, organized by the CGIAR Initiative on Genebanks explored the role of DSI to conserve crop and livestock genetic diversity and explore and utilize that diversity in plant and animal breeding programs.

Attendees at the COP15 side event on DSI discover how genetic resources are used in research and development for agriculture. (Photo: Michael Halewood/Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT)

Carolina Sansaloni, wheat germplasm bank curator and genotyping specialist, illustrated how DSI is being used in the CIMMYT wheat collection to analyze structure, redundancies, and gaps, further detailing how generation and use of DSI to conduct similar analyses within national genebanks in Latin America is being supported through collaborative efforts of CIMMYT and the Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT.

CIMMYT principal scientist Sarah Hearne focused on the application of DSI to interrogate broad swathes of crop genetic diversity for potential climate change adaptation, providing examples of work from the Allele Mining Initiative projects, Mining Useful Alleles and Fast Tracking Climate Solutions, alongside earlier work funded by the Mexican Government.

The take-home message was that genetic diversity and germplasm bank collections, when explored at “global scale” with modern tools and diverse partnerships, offer a powerful resource in the efforts to mitigate the impacts of climate change. This potential is only realized through appropriate generation and sharing of DSI generated from collections of many countries of origin.

Sansaloni and Hearne also contributed to a discussion paper, titled “Digital sequence information is changing the way genetic resources are used in agricultural research and development: implications for new benefit sharing norms”. This article, developed by scientists and germplasm law experts from across the CGIAR, provides a more detailed assessment of CGIAR use of DSI and the benefit sharing options being considered by the Contracting Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity.

Filippo Guzzon

Written by Emma Orchardson on . Posted in Uncategorized.

Filippo Guzzon is a plant biologist dealing with seed biology and conservation of plant genetic resources (PGR).

He studies germination requirements, seed ecology, seed longevity, seed physiology as well as germination under abiotic stresses. In order to improve the conservation and use of PGR, his research aims also at bridging technical gaps that prevent their successful ex situ conservation.

Carolina Paola Sansaloni

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Carolina Sansaloni is a molecular geneticist and leader of the Genetic Analysis Service for Agriculture, a high throughput genotyping platform managed by CIMMYT’s Seeds of Discovery initiative that uses Diversity Arrays Technology. She regularly contributes to projects that have strategic significance in wheat pathology, disease resistance, quality, functional genomics and bioinformatics.

Sansaloni also works on the wheat Global Diversity Analysis, which characterizes and analyses seeds in genebanks at CIMMYT and the International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA). Her team has characterized around 100,000 wheat accessions, including more than 40 species that represent 40 percent of the CIMMYT genebank and almost 100 percent of the ICARDA ‘s genebank wheat collection. This is an incredible and unique resource for wheat scientists that provides a genetic framework to help select the most relevant accessions for breeding.

Sarah Hearne

Sarah Hearne

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Sarah Hearne serves as the Chief Science and Innovation Officer (CSO) at CIMMYT, leading efforts to implement a cohesive, interconnected, and multidisciplinary approach to research and partnerships. Her role focuses on fostering collaboration, leveraging complementarities across CIMMYT’s core research areas, and ensuring the organization remains future-ready. Through strategic alignment, she drives CIMMYT’s ability to deliver on its cutting-edge mission and vision, advancing sustainable agricultural solutions on a global scale.

Kevin Pixley

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Kevin Pixley is the Dryland Crops Program Director (DCP) and Wheat Program Director a.i. (GWP)

Pixley was formerly the Genetic Resources Program (GRP) director where he helped formulate, facilitate, and oversee inter-disciplinary strategies to enhance the relevance and impacts of wheat and maize research to improve livelihoods, especially for resource-poor farmers.

Pixley and his research team use genomics, phenomics and informatics to characterize and enhance the conservation and use of wheat and maize biodiversity through CIMMYT’s Seeds of Discovery initiative, where they explore the use of crop biodiversity to address novel opportunities, including enhanced sustainability of farming systems, improved nutritional or health outcomes or value-addition for farmers. They also look for opportunities to apply novel technologies to address needs of resource-poor farmers.

His current research includes:

1) The genomic characterization of maize and wheat germplasm bank diversity and enhancing the use of diversity in breeding

2) The use of novel breeding tools, especially gene editing, to complement traditional breeding techniques

3) The development of tools and approaches to enhance the use of genomics in teaching the use of biodiversity in plant breeding

4) The legal frameworks governing and opportunities promoting fair access and sharing of benefits from genetic resources

5) The role of provitamin A carotenoids (and other anti-oxidants) in maize grain towards reducing mycotoxin contamination of grain

6) Science and society, including how to ensure equitable opportunity for all to access the potential benefits of science