We all know that once the banana is peeled it is a race against time to eat it before it goes brown. And few people want to eat a brown banana, so they get thrown away. But it’s not just you throwing away your banana – a study found out that 1.4 million edible bananas are thrown out every day! Reducing this waste could reduce carbon dioxide emissions by over 9 million tonnes per year. Essential as we face climate change due to excess greenhouse gases.

Now there is a new gene edited banana that can stay fresh and keep being yellow even after peeling or slicing.

These were not developed by traditional genetic engineering where a gene from another source is added into the target genome to make changes. Instead, the process of gene editing was carried out. The gene editing tool is called CRISPR-Cas9. This type of genetic modification isn’t stated in the AQA or OCR(A) specs but can sneak into exam questions as a novel scenario for application questions. CRISPR-Cas9 work like a tiny pair of scissors to cut specific sections of DNA to change the base sequence and achieve a better phenotype. The scientists were able to reduce the production of the enzyme polyphenol oxidase, an enzyme that causes browning.

The potential for gene editing is huge – there are plans to develop strawberries that are sweeter tasting, crops that are disease resistant and tomatoes that have a higher concentration of vitamin D. Higher yields and better-quality crops are essential in our future to maintain food security for our growing human population.

Download the article from the guardian page here