Foldable, all-corn tortillas may soon hit the market as a result of several years of research conducted by scientists and professors at Iowa State and the United States Department of Agriculture.

For the last five years, Paul Scott, USDA collaborator for the ISU agronomy department, has been working on a project to improve the quality of corn. He said he wants to improve the nutritional value of corn to make better animal feed and foods with wheat genes to make a corn tortilla that folds easily.

Scott’s research is being funded by the Iowa Corn Promotion Board and the USDA. He said wheat is more difficult to grow in certain places and is more expensive to grow than corn.

“We use whatever methods work,” Scott said.

In this case, genes are taken from a wheat source and put into the corn. The plants are then bred and measured for specific traits, he said.

Kan Wang of the ISU Plant Transformation Facility transforms the genes.

“We have been very successful at introducing the genes into the corn,” he said.

Ames is the only public facility in the United States that makes genes and puts them into plants, Scott said.

Researchers can select genes for almost any trait that is measurable, said Kendall Lamkey, USDA scientist and associate professor of agronomy.

“Research will never be done,” Scott said. “You can always make an improvement, and I think it’s going great. Whenever we put a new gene into a plant, we often see better results than expected.”

Genetic engineering is not limited to only corn genes, he said. A gene can be taken from any organism in nature, or researchers can create their own genes.

Although there are groups opposed to using this technology, Scott said he wants to educate the public about it.

“If everybody had a better understanding of the technology, they would be able to express concerns in a more rational way,” Scott said. “This research is just starting to be published, and people are just now realizing that this is a good thing.”