Taking the Angst Out of Allergies
Susan Williamson
Taking the angst out of allergies.
Development of the world’s first non-allergenic ryegrass has won a University of Melbourne scientist the prestigious Royal Society of Victoria Research Medal 2000.
Associate Professor Prem Bhalla and her team from the University’s Institute of Land and Food Resources spent more then five years unraveling the genetic secrets of ryegrass before successfully developing a strain without the major allergenic proteins that cause hayfever and asthma in more than 20% of Australians.
Grass pollen is a potent source of allergens in Australia’s early summer because of the prolific amounts of pollen it produces. “More than 90% of people allergic to grass pollen have been found with antibodies to these allergenic proteins,” says Bhalla.
To develop the non-allergenic ryegrass the team first identified genes responsible for the production of the allergenic proteins and then found a way to ‘switch them off’. “Traditional plant breeding and selection methods have been unsuccessful in decreasing or eliminating these allergenic proteins, Bhalla says. “We developed a gene delivery technique that enabled us to ‘switch off’ the genes producing the allergenic proteins.
“The technique could also be used to beneficially modify many other crops, for example, increasing the protein or nutritional content of grains, or producing salinity or drought-resistant crops.”
The Royal Society of Victoria Research Medal is awarded for outstanding research carried out in the last five years. Bhalla’s other research that contributed to her winning the medal include: demonstrating that tissue culture techniques could be applied to the Macadamia nut, a process that can increase yields and enhance the success of breeding programs; pioneering a method that eliminates the risk of contamination in hybrid seeds, an important factor for seed exports – hybrid plants usually have higher yields and better plant vigour than their parent plants, so are sought after by farmers, horticulturalists and plant breeders; and developing new cultivars of ornamental Australian native plants using a combination of traditional breeding and biotechnology.
The Royal Society of Victoria was founded in 1854 and provides a forum for discussion of scientific and technological issues relevant to the community. It helps form government policy on science and technology policy and on scientific matters generally, especially to the Government of Victoria.
Dr Susan Williamson is editor of LabNews.
(This article appeared in LabNews February/March 2002 and WISENET thanks LabNews for permitting us to reprint the article.)