10 Jul 2017 --- Research conducted at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) has yielded a golden-orange fleshed banana with particularly high pro-vitamin A levels. Backed with close to US$10 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the researchers set out to develop the fruit to improve the nutritional content of bananas in Uganda, where the fruit is the major staple food in their daily diet.

Led by Distinguished Professor James Dale, the research involved extensive laboratory tests at QUT as well as field trials in North Queensland. According to Dale, the genetic modification process resulted in the identification and selection of banana genes that could be used to enhance pro-vitamin A in banana fruit.

“The East African Highland cooking banana is an excellent source of starch. It is harvested green then chopped and steamed,” Professor Dale says. “But it has low levels of micronutrients, particularly pro-vitamin A and iron. The consequences of vitamin A deficiency are severe.”

Describing the development of the biofortified banana as a significant humanitarian project, he said it had been estimated that 650,000-700,000 children worldwide die from pro-vitamin A deficiency each year with a further several hundred thousand going blind.

“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,” Professor Dale says. “Over the years, we've been able to develop a banana that has achieved excellent pro-vitamin A levels, hence the golden-orange rather than cream-colored flesh.”

Dale says that the researchers “tried and tested hundreds of different genetic variations" in the lab and field trials in Queensland until they got the best results, adding that the “elite genes have been sent to Uganda in test tubes where they have been inserted into Ugandan bananas for field trials there.”