Dr. Workie Zegeye

Workie is currently working as part of Dr. Noam Chayut’s group at the Germplasm Resources National Bioscience Research Infrastructure (GR-NBRI). His role forms part of ProWild, a Horizon Europe project (https://www.pro-wild.eu/index.html ), aiming to protect and promote Crop Wild Relative (CWR) conservation and utilisation.

To Enhance wheat CWR utilisation, Workie leverages on recently developed wild introgression lines panel (https://www.seedstor.ac.uk/search-browseaccessions.php?idCollection=40)    exploring novel genomic regulations absent in modern wheat germplasm. Workie aims to associate genomic introgressions with beneficial changes to wheat grain quality and disease resistance (naturally occurring in the UK and France) through a multi-environment experimental approach.

To enhance CWR conservation, Workie is contributing to the characterization of the national wheat CWR collection, integrating genetics, genomic, and phenotypic assessments to uncover new useful genetic resources and better understand the breadth of diversity as well as gaps in ex-situ conservation. By assessing conserved germplasm across the continent and developing strategies to enhance its utilisation in pre-breeding the work strengthens conservation efforts and fosters international collaborations to drive innovation in crop improvement.

With a strong passion for plant genetic resources and sustainable agriculture, Workie is dedicated to advancing research that bridges conservation science and breeding practice, contributing to the resilience and sustainability of future wheat production.