Dear ICGI members,

Greetings! 

At this time, we have concluded our 2017 election.  But, before presenting those results, please allow me to say just a few words.

Cotton genomics continues to march forward!  Over the past couple of years, we’ve seen MAJOR advances in cotton genomics, including SNP genotyping and sequence assemblies.  Ongoing research indicates that the pace is certain to quicken the next two years. Applications of genomics continue to expand and accelerate in ALL COUNTRIES.  By individually and collectively, the advances in genomics, phenomics and gene editing hold great promise for accelerating and expanding the scope of genetic improvements.  Last year, we had a successful meeting in Brazil, our first to be held jointly, in this case the WCRC meeting.  Recently, we’ve formalized arrangements for our 2018 biennial meeting to be held May 28 – June 1, 2018 in Edinburgh, Scotland, and will be novel relative to previous meeting locations. Special thanks to Dr. Don Jones in helping us develop those plans.

Please join me in thanking our Executive Steering Committee Members for their many contributions to our dialogue and decision-making over the past two years:

·      John Yu (Overall Co-Chairperson),

Workgroup Chairs and Co-chairs

·      Ibrokhim Abdurakhmonov

·      Xiongming Du

·      David Fang

·      Wangzhen Guo

·      Dorrie Main

·      Andrew Paterson

·      Daniel Peterson

·      Sukumar Saha

·      Jodi Scheffler

·      Guoli Song

·      Xianlong Zhang

·      Don Jones (Chair of the Advisory Committee)

·      Steve Hague (Secretary/Treasurer)

·      Jing Yu (Website/Membership Coordinator)

Congratulations to newly elected ICGI officers who were elected as the new Co-Chairs, based on popular votes:

·  Tianzhen Zhang         (ICGI Overall)

·  Shuijin Zhu                  (Breeding and Applied Genomics)

·  Joshua Udall               (Comparative Genomics and Bioinformatics)

·  Shuangxia Jin              (Functional Genomics)

·  Md Tehseen Azhar    (Germplasm & Genetic Stocks)

·  Peng Chee                    (Structural Genomics)

Thus, going forward, our new workgroup leadership looks like this:

Current ICGI Officers (2017-2019)

(After the 2019 election, the Co-Chairs will assume the Chair positions). 

In parting, I thank you for the chance to serve you and the rest of international cotton genomics community.  I HOPE TO SEE YOU IN EDINBURGH !