Researchers have identified a gene that can help fight a new devastating strain of a fungal disease that is now at the door of the Punjab region the breadbasket of Asia. The gene enables resistance to a strain of stem rust, a fungal disease that is hampering wheat production throughout Africa and Asia and threatening food security worldwide. The finding by researchers at the University of California, Davis in the US will help breeders more quickly develop varieties that can fend off the deadly pathogens and halt a worldwide wheat epidemic. Wheat and stem rust have been in an evolutionary arms race for more than 10,000 years.