Gene leads to longer shelf life for tomatoes,
possibly other fruits
Avtar Handa, a professor of horticulture at Purdue University, found that adding a yeast gene to tomatoes increases production of a compound that slows aging and decay. Fully ripe tomatoes from the transgenic tomato plants studied lasted about eight days longer before showing signs of shriveling compared with the non-transgenic plants. This finding can have broad implications and help people have access to fresh fruits even without controlled environment storage. Learn more >>