Over the last 15 years, Valentina Spanic has been engaged in wheat breeding and wheat genetics research, where she combines classical breeding with modern technologies. She has focused on Fusarium resistance, and has worked on rusts at the University of Minnesota, USA and the University of Sydney, Australia, where she spent a few months. At the Agricultural Institute Osijek, she has established Fusarium inoculum production and she tried to combine resistance with research on the physiology of plants. Through a KWS-Borlaug stipendium, she was worked on disease resistance, hybrid wheat production, and evaluation of genetic diversity with SNP markers.