TUNG PHAEN, Thailand — You can take the sugar out of soft drinks and the fat from junk food. But eliminate the pungent odor from the world's smelliest fruit and brace for a major international controversy.

After three decades of research, a Thai government scientist working at an orchard here near the Cambodian border says he has managed to take the stink out of durian.

The spiky Southeast Asian fruit, variously described by its detractors as smelling like garbage, moldy cheese or rotting fish, is banned from many hotels, airlines and the Singapore subway. But durian lovers, and there are many in Asia, are convinced that, like fine French cheeses, the worse the smell, the better the taste.

Songpol Somsri, one of the world's leading experts on the fruit, crossed more than 90 varieties, many of them found only in the wild, and came up with what he calls Chantaburi No. 1, after his home province and the location of the research center.