IT SOUNDS unappealing, but rice containing human genes is to be grown in the US. Rather than end up on dinner plates, the rice will make human proteins useful for treating infant diarrhoea in the developing world.

On 28 February, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) gave a provisional go-ahead for three types of the rice to be planted over 1300 hectares in Kansas. Developed by Ventria Bioscience of Sacramento, California, the rice varieties have been given genes that either make the human breast milk proteins lactoferrin and lysozyme or the human blood protein albumin.

The rice varieties havegenes for human breast milk proteins or …