16 July 2021 - Bio-fortified Golden Banana
Bananas are one of the most common, affordable and much-loved fruits Scientists at the National Agri-food Biotechnology Institute (NABI), Mohali has developed nutritionally rich Indian banana varieties that are rich in pro-vitamin A. According to UNICEF, more than one-third of children today are not receiving adequate quantities of Vitamin A supplementation. Sometimes referred to as `Golden Banana’, these are currently being grown in the secure and contained greenhouses of the NABI campus. Scientists have made special changes in the banana saplings using modern CRISPR or the Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats technology. Since, these are genetically modified varieties they cannot be openly released, just yet. Trials are ongoing and as and when India allows GM foods, `golden banana’ that can help save millions of children from going blind due to the shortage of Vitamin A could reach homes. In this episode, we have an in-depth discussion on GM foods in India and also take a look at the vital step of tissue culture and the process of developing these bio-fortified bananas. "
