BY FARHAN ZULKIPLEE
AUSTRALIAN SCIENTISTS have developed golden-orange-fleshed bananas rich in pro-vitamin A that could help the many children in Uganda who have a pro-vitamin A deficiency.
ABC News reported that Professor James Dale, Research Director of Queensland University of Technology has been conducting research and development with other researchers on genetically modified (GM) banana for more than a decade. They have grown the first GM banana in Uganda using the local species. He was thrilled and excited to know that their GM banana has shown a positive result.
“What we’ve done is take a gene from a banana that originated in Papua New Guinea and is naturally very high in pro-vitamin A but has small bunches, and inserted it into a Cavendish banana,” Dale said in a release.
