It’s a common food that’s probably in your home right now, but peanuts and peanut butter can be deadly if you’re allergic. An Alabama A & M professor has come up with a way to get rid of a common allergen found in peanuts.
In Canada, a 15-year old girl died after kissing her boyfriend who had eaten a peanut butter sandwich. She died from an allergic reaction to peanuts.
"Unfortunately, every year we can recall hundreds of people dying from accidentally eating peanuts," says Doctor Hortense Dodo.
Doctor Dodo is a professor at Alabama A&M University.
She and her colleague conducted an experiment. Their goal was to create a non-allergenic peanut and the experiment worked.
Using a process called RNA Interference, the scientists were able to get rid of a major peanut allergen which triggers sometimes fatal allergic reactions.
Doctor Dodo considers this a milestone.
"Now, in case someone that is allergic to peanuts was to eat it accidentally, it would not trigger an allergic reaction," says Dodo.
Doctor Dodo says it took her and her colleague five years to create a non-allergenic peanut. They’re glad their work finally paid off.
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