Robbie Waugh

In late 2015 I was awarded a 5-year ERC advanced grant to extend our work on meiosis and recombination in large genome crop plants. This complements ongoing interests in inflorescence development and architecture and the development and application of genetic (e.g. GWAS) and genomic technologies (e.g. exome sequencing) to explore, largely through collaboration, a range of issues in plant biology (e.g. cell wall biology). Common themes include the impact of natural (e.g. crop wild relatives and landraces) and induced (e.g. mutants, genome editing) diversity, how these can be assessed, generated, captured efficiently and exploited for both discovery science and crop improvement. In future, while maintaining a focus on gene identification we will also conduct more mechanistic studies in order to understand the individual genes and networks of interaction that condition certain biological responses (e.g. inflorescence architecture). Translating research into tangible outcomes remains an important driver and we have had considerable success over an extended period in identifying genes that control a broad range of phenotypic traits. We therefore actively collaborate with the commercial sector, who generally deploy technologies that we have developed, or discoveries we have made, in practical crop improvement programmes.