Japanese scientists created the first allergy-safe chicken egg

In France, nearly 2% of children are allergic to eggs. It is one of the most common food allergies in infants worldwide. Faced with the same problem in Japan, scientists have developed the first non-allergenic egg.

It looks like a normal egg and can be eaten by all babies without causing any problems. Japanese scientists have just succeeded in creating the first non-allergenic chicken egg, which can be consumed by people, especially children, with allergies.

In Japan, public opinion is very sensitive to these food allergies. Systematically, as soon as you place your order at the restaurant, the waiter will ask you if you have any allergies. And this egg allergy is also common among very young Japanese people. Parents usually discover it when the baby approaches his first birthday.

The allergy has several different symptoms, it varies depending on the little one. This could be vomiting, eczema, red patches on the skin, or worse, difficulty breathing. Generally, it disappears before the age of ten, but adults continue to suffer from this allergy throughout their lives. This is why Japanese researchers from Hiroshima University worked on the subject with major food groups to find a solution. They notably worked with the Kewpie company, the Japanese mayonnaise giant.

To proceed, the researchers first isolated the different proteins within eggs, those found in the white, those found in the yolk, to identify the most allergenic. Next, they looked at what we call egg genome editing. Concretely, they cut the DNA at one of the sequences, the one which is normally used to code and produce the protein which causes allergies: the ovomucoid protein. After these manipulations, they bred chickens that did not have this protein. Analyzing their first eggs, they also did not carry the problematic protein. The researchers then tested these modified eggs, to be certain that the genetic modification had not had other potentially dangerous impacts.

You can’t find these eggs in the supermarket in Japan yet. Researchers are in the final phase of testing, at a large hospital in the city of Sagamihara. There, they feed these eggs and their products to children and adults who were sick when they ate regular eggs. Normally, all these tests will be completed in 2026. This is when we will normally see mayonnaise and caramel cream guaranteed allergy-free arrive on the market.