Scientists create genetically modified ‘super banana’ that could save thousands of children’s lives

Vitamin A deficiency in developing countries is the cause of an estimated 750,000 deaths in children.

It is also the leading cause of preventable blindness - and can significantly increase the risk of disease from severe infections.

Now scientists in Australia have developed a revolutionary ‘super’ banana, rich in pro-vitamin A, which could save the lives of the hundreds of thousands of children who die from this deficiency every year.

The golden-fleshed fruit was created by researchers from Queensland University of Technology, who have been growing the biofortified bananas for over the last 10 years - thanks to $7.6 million in funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The bananas were created by taking genes from a species of provitamin A-rich banana found in Papa New Guinea, which only grows in small bunches.

Scientists then fused it with the ‘household’ Cavendish banana - the bunches which are produced in mass which most people are familiar with seeing in the supermarket.

The result is an unusual orange-coloured banana that could significantly increase the vitamin intake of the consumer.

Writing in Wiley’s Plant Biotechnology journal, Professor James Dale, who led the research, said: “Over the years, we’ve been able to develop a banana that has achieved excellent provitamin A levels, hence the golden-orange rather than cream-coloured flesh.”

The team have already trialled growing the bananas in Australia, where the fruit exceeded expectations by producing double the level of provitamin A than expected.

“Achieving these scientific results along with their publication, is a major milestone in our quest to deliver a more nutritional diet to some of the poorest subsistence communities in Africa,” Prof Dale said. “Our science works. We tried and tested hundreds of different genetic variations here in our lab and in field trials in Queensland until we got the best results.

"These elite genes have been sent to Uganda in test tubes where they have been inserted into Ugandan bananas for field trials there.”

Scientists are now keen to test the results of growing the bananas in East Africa, where cooked bananas are already a staple part of of the country’s diet.

Despite scientists making significant in roads in reducing vitamin A deficiency worldwide, research has found that the deficiency in children aged between six months and five years in Uganda has increased from 20 percent in 2006 to 38 per cent in 2011.

If initial field trials are successful, the researchers hope that their bananas will be self-sufficiently grown by Ugandan farmers by as early as 2021.