Growing numbers of people are allergic to eggs — up to 2% of kids. Most kids outgrow their egg allergy by age 16, but until they do, they have to avoid eating eggs and products that contain them. People allergic to eggs are also at risk of experiencing a reaction to flu vaccines, which are typically grown in eggs.
So it is good news that researchers at Hiroshima University have created chickens that lay non-allergenic eggs. They have used gene-editing technology to create chickens that lay eggs without ovomucoid (OVM), the protein most likely to trigger an egg allergy.
“These results … reveal that the eggs laid by this OVM knockout chicken solve the allergy problem in food and vaccines,” said lead researcher Ryo Ezaki. The eggs the hens laid contained no regular or mutant OVM protein.
The eggs will not become available immediately. Indeed, it can take years for genetically-modified foods to be approved by government regulators. It took 20 years for the FDA to approve genetically-enhanced salmon.
Moreover, Freethink reports that “Given that even a small amount of OVM protein could be life-threatening for someone with a severe egg allergy, the researchers plan to perform more studies before claiming that their eggs will not trigger reactions if eaten or used for vaccines.”
“The next phase of research will be to evaluate the physical properties and processing suitability of OVM-knockout eggs, and to confirm their efficacy through clinical trials,” Ezaki says. “We will continue to conduct further research toward the practical application of allergy-reduced eggs.”
Genetically-modified foods save people from starvation in the Third World by creating drought-resistant varieties of crops that need less water, and pest-resistant varieties of crops that can ward off insects. But lawsuits have delayed the introduction of such crops in many countries.
Scientists recently developed genetically-modified bananas to keep the principal variety of banana from being wiped out by a dangerous blight. They also engineered bionic silkworms that spin fibers six times stronger than Kevlar.
A mutant tomato could save harvests around the world. Farmers have found they can increase crop yields by using electrical stimulation on their crops.
Researchers discovered that a plant virus could be used to save crops from root-eating pests. A virus is being used to cure deafness in new gene therapy.
