Genetically modified bananas grown in far north Queensland and bound for Africa are about to undergo human trials in the United States.

Queensland University of Technology (QUT) researchers have engineered the fruit to increase the amount of beta-carotene, which is converted to vitamin A in the body.

The aim is to prevent thousands of children in East Africa from dying or going blind as a result of vitamin A deficiency.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has spent $12 million on the project, which is being led by Professor James Dale from QUT's Centre for Tropical Crops and Biocommodities.

"There have been a lot of strategies to alleviate vitamin A deficiency but there is still a resistant population in the world," he said.

"They are the poorest of the poor and probably the best way to get to those people is through their staple foods."

Ugandan researcher Stephen Buah has been working on the project in Brisbane for almost three years.

He says 30 per cent of children aged under five are clinically deficient in vitamin A.

"Children aged between zero to five years who are vitamin A deficient are most likely not to survive, and a number of them develop complications that lead to blindness," he said.

He says 70 per cent of the population in Uganda survive on bananas.

"Banana is a staple food - it is in fact called food, without it on the meal then it is not called food, so it is an important food crop," Mr Buah said.

"Once this project is complete and products released, the impact is going to be massive because banana is a big crop.

"It is going to be electric, it is going to move throughout the country."

Nine years down the track, the project is entering a new phase.

Professor Dale says the next few months will be very exciting.

"We are on the cusp of going into development phase," he said.

"We are at the stage of going into the field with a whole range of lines of bananas to pick 'that' one and take it all the way through to release in Uganda."

Aim to release bananas to Ugandan farmers by 2020

About 10 kilograms of the bananas grown at the South Johnstone Research Station near Innisfail in far north Queensland have arrived at Iowa State University in the US, where the trials are being conducted.

Professor Dale is confident of good results.

"We're very confident actually we already know from the animal models that beta-carotene is highly available in cooked bananas, so that's really good," he said.

"It is terribly exciting for us to be at this stage of the project.

"Our goal is to release these bananas in 2020 to farmers in Uganda."

Horticulturalist Jeff Daniells is in charge of growing the genetically modified fruit in far north Queensland.

"We are using a gene from bananas that have elevated levels of pro-vitamin A and just putting those into existing bananas without changing the banana too much," he said.

Mr Daniells says the GM banana is a different shade of yellow to ordinary bananas.

"We're looking for that yellow, particularly in that fruit pulp, which will give elevated levels of vitamin A," he said.

Results from the human trials are expected in October.