Academic Council meeting: Cabinet of Ministers scholarship for young scientists

On 25 September 2026 the Plant Breeding and Genetics Institute — National Center of Seed and Cultivar Investigation held a meeting of its Academic Council, which considered two items:

1. The competition for the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine scholarship for young scientists.
2. The attestation of Ya. S. Fanin, holder of the Cabinet of Ministers scholarship for young scientists, on his research results for the period 1 May – 1 October 2026.

The institute’s Scientific Secretary Zoia Shcherbyna informed the Council members that Yevhenii Kirchuk, Senior Researcher of the Department of Wheat Breeding and Seed Production, had submitted documents for the competition.

The candidate presented the report “Breeding of soft winter wheat for pyramided disease resistance as a component of environmentally safe growing technologies”. Ye. Kirchuk’s work is devoted to creating winter wheat breeding material with pyramided disease resistance by combining genes of different origin, and to determining its adaptability and valuable agronomic traits.

Following a secret ballot, the Academic Council of PBGI NCSCI unanimously supported Yevhenii Kirchuk’s candidacy for the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine scholarship for young scientists.

Yaroslav Fanin, Researcher of the Plant Biochemistry Laboratory, presented a report on the work carried out under the topic “Identification of biochemical markers of resistance to phytopathogens in winter wheat Triticum aestivum L.”.

Within this work the scholarship holder studied the biochemical response of winter wheat genotypes to viral infection. The main focus was on changes in carbohydrate and protein metabolism, the state of the photosynthetic pigment complex, and the functioning of the plants’ proteolytic system.

A separate line of research was determining the activity of proteolytic enzymes and trypsin inhibitors and assessing their potential as components of a set of biochemical indicators associated with the response of wheat plants to viral infection.

The work established the genotype-specific character of the plants’ biochemical response and identified indicators that are promising for further study as potential markers of wheat resistance to viral diseases. The results presented by Yaroslav Fanin are part of research aimed at deepening the understanding of the biochemical mechanisms of wheat resistance to phytopathogens and at finding indicators that can be used in further breeding studies.