Day I: September 21, 2026

Registration and Opening 

13:00 – 13:30: Registration 

13:30 – 13:40: Opening and welcome speech. Prof. Dr. Ahmed Sallam

13:40 – 14:00: Opening Scientific Address

                           From Genomics to Genetic Gain: Accelerating Crop Improvement for a Changing World.

                           Prof. Dr. Rajeev Varshney. Murdoch University, Australia.

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Session 1: Genetics and Breeding for Abiotic Stress Tolerance
14:00 – 17:35 (Cairo, Egypt time | GMT+3)​​

Moderators: Prof. Dr. Diaa Abdel Moneam & Prof. Dr. Ahmed Sallam​

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 🎤 Keynote Lectures

14:00 – 14:40: Recent Advances in Developing Salt-tolerant Crop Varieties: Linking Genetic Identity                                                    to Nutritional Traits,

                          Prof. Dr. Jutta Papenbrock: Leibniz University Hannover, Germany

14:40 – 15:20: Peduncle Trait Variation and Its Genetic and Phenotypic Association with Spike Productivity

                          in Wheat under Contrasting Water Regimes,

                          Prof. Dr. Ahmed Sallam, Assiut University, Egypt

15:20 – 16:00: Development and Delivery of Stress Tolerant Crops for Marginal Environments, 

                          Prof. Dr. Mark Tester, KAUST, Saudi Arabia.​

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16:00 – 16:20: ☕ Break​​

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🧬 Oral & Poster Presentations

 16:20 – 16:40: Identification and Validation of Novel Genes Associated with Lead Tolerance in Spring Wheat                                       at the Seedling Stage, 

                           Ms. Shrouk Abd Al-twab Abd Al-moneim, Assiut University, Egypt. Oral Presentation

16:40 – 17:00: Comparative Transcriptomic Meta-Analysis of Male Reproductive Heat Stress Responses in

                          Plants,

                          Neeta Lohani, TIET, India. Oral Presentation

17:00 – 17:20: Unravelling Critical Phenological Windows of Heat Stress Resilience in Bread Wheat Through                                    Temporal NDVI and Canopy Temperature Dynamics,

                         Narain Dhar, Ch. Charan Singh University, Meerut, India. Oral Presentation

17:20 – 17:35: Transcriptomic response of the wild plant Mesembryanthemum forsskalii Hochst. ex Boiss to

                          salinity stress: de novo assembly, functional annotation, and transcription factor profiling,                                          Dr. Sumayah I. Alsanie, IAU, KSA. Poster Presentation

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