Funding provided by the UK Science and Innovation Network in South Africa enabled the hosting of the highly successful Bioinformatics and Wheat Genomics II workshop in Worcester (SA), which focused on the discipline-specific training in bioinformatics and wheat genomics of scientists from the African continent. This workshop also effectively built on the networks established through the British High Commission and AgBiz Grain as well as the Newton Fund Researchers Link Workshop (Bioinformatics and Wheat Genomics) held in South Africa in 2017.
Dr Renée Prins co-organised this SA-UK capacity building opportunity with Dr Diane Saunders (John Innes Centre, UK) in which Dr Saunders, Dr Burkhard Steuernagel (John Innes Centre, UK) and Dr Robert Davey (Earlham Institute, UK) provided exceptional training during the course of the 5-day workshop. On the last day of the workshop Mr Peter van Heusden (SANBI, UWC) and Prof Hugh Patterton (Centre for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, SU) informed the attendees about some of the bioinformatics activities at their respective institutions. Through this interaction they also gained insight into the needs of the local agricultural science sector as most of the bioinformatics activities are focused on human diseases.
