Dr. Turakulov Khurshid is the Deputy Director of the Institute of Genetics at the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Uzbekistan (AS RUz). He obtained his PhD in plant genetics at AS RUz. He has worked on several projects related to apples in recent years. The main focus of his research is genetics and breeding of winter wheat and apple resistance, plant pathogen interaction, wheat and apple biotic stress factors, genome and functional genomic research, using fungal DNA libraries, control of diseases using plant resistance types, effect of climate change on plant-pathogen interactions, epidemiology of crop diseases, and breeding of resistant varieties to diseases with high productivity and quality, as well as genetics and breeding of fruit species. He has research experience at ICARDA, CIMMYT, and Max Planck Institute for Molecular Plant Physiology, Germany.