An international consortium comprised of 12 public and private entities has successfully completed the sequencing and assembly of Phakopsora pachyrhizi, the plant pathogen that causes Asian soybean rust. With the complete sequencing of three P. pachyrhizi isolates, researchers will be able to study the molecular mechanisms of the pathogen in order to advance the breeding and engineering of disease-resistant crops.

The consortium comprises the 2Blades Foundation, Bayer, the Brazilian Company of Agricultural Research (Embrapa), the German University of Hohenheim, l’Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA) and Université de Lorraine, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Joint Genome Institute (JGI, USA), KeyGene, the German University of RWTH Aachen, The Sainsbury Laboratory, Syngenta and the Federal University of Viçosa (Brazil).