IRTG Seminar: From Falcon-tube to Farm: Exploring genetic diversity of cereals as a pre-breeder

Dr Anna Backhaus
My journey into plant biology began with my Bachelor thesis at the John Innes Centre, working on wheat spikelet development under the supervision of Scott Boden. I then completed my Master in Plant Sciences at University Bonn, studying flowering in a Barley MAGIC population and getting my first exposure to international field work through an internship with ICARDA for 5 month in 2018. Afterwards, I embarked on my PhD journey back at the John Innes Centre, trying to understand the transcriptional network in control of rudimentary basal spikelet formation in wheat with Cristobal Uauy and Richard Morris.
Since 2023, I am working on pre-breeding for cereals at ICARDA. My work focuses on accelerating the identification and introgression of useful gene bank material. I also want to expand the use of more distal crop wild relatives of wheat and barley. These are difficult to assess, and crossing barriers are in the way. However, CWR introgressions have shown great potential in breeding for dry areas. I believe germplasm diversity, but equally in the workplace, will be essential for future crop improvement. Furthermore, I am keen to advance the application and use of next-generation sequencing data in breeding and pre-breeding.