International Cotton Genome Initiative (ICGI) Research Conference Presentations

Edinburgh, Scotland
May 28 – June 1, 2018

The 2018 International Cotton Genome Initiative [ICGI] Research Conference was held in Edinburgh, Scotland from May 28 – June 1.  Cotton scientists from many countries gathered together to share state-of-the-art scientific discoveries about cotton diversity, genetics, genome sequencing, and gene identification/function. This was the 11th biennial ICGI Research Conference and the first to be held in Europe.  To enhance the experience for conference attendees, a tour was conducted of the James Hutton Institute near Dundee in which participants learned about barley breeding and observed the global potato germplasm collection. The Edinburgh conference was a watershed meeting for the cotton community in that it focused on connecting genomic knowledge to agronomic trait improvement.  Conference attendees were welcomed by Dr. Don Jones from Cotton Incorporated who planned and organized most of the local details of the meeting. Dr. John Hickey from the Roslin Institute, world renown expert on genomic selection, opened the plenary talks.  Presentations followed in sessions on Applied Genomics and Breeding, Structural Genomics, Germplasm and Genetic Stocks, Functional Genomics, and Comparative Genomics and Bioinformatics. Other plenary speakers included Drs. Peng Chee, Jeff Chen, Tianzhen Zhang, Josh Udall, Todd Campbell, Shuangxia Jin, Yuxian Zhu, Johnathan Wendel, and Dorrie Main.