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NEWS

Senesco Technologies, Inc. announces results from new R&D initiative on environmental stress  and disease
Princeton, New Jersey
October 2, 2000

Senesco Technologies, Inc. announced today that its new research and development initiative, which focuses on the enhancement of plant tolerance to environmental stress and disease, has yielded significant results. 

When expression of the DHS gene is silenced (its activity inhibited) in Arabidopsis plants, which is closely related to the agronomic oil-producing crop, Canola, the resultant plants exhibit a striking increase in drought tolerance. When deprived of water, the plants with the silenced DHS gene remained vital and healthy for a full week longer than control plants, and produced up to 44% more seed. 

Dr. John E. Thompson, Senesco's Executive Vice-President of Research and Development,
explained the experiments and results. ``Drought conditions were achieved in two ways: by
withholding water and by application of polyethylene glycol which removes water from the soil. In
each case, the DHS-silenced plants proved to be much more resilient to water deprivation. These
results bode well for our new R&D initiative which is designed to mitigate the deleterious impact of
environmental stress and disease on crop yield.'' 

Ruedi Stalder, Senesco's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, reinforced the commercial
significance of the results by stating, ``Agriculture is continuously subject to adverse environmental conditions. Each year, farmers around the world cope with temperature extremes, drought and disease. These conditions account for billions of dollars in losses annually. The results announced today confirm the ability of our technology to enhance the tolerance of plants to environmental stress.'' 

Consistent with the Company's commercialization strategy, Senesco is engaged in discussions with several companies interested in entering into licensing agreements and strategic relationships for the use of the Company's technology in fruits, flowers, vegetables and agronomic crops. 

Senesco is a gene discovery company whose mission is to enhance crop quality and productivity
through the control of senescence (aging) which results in longer shelf life, increased crop yield,
increased biomass and greater tolerance to environmental stress. The Company is based in
Princeton, New Jersey. 

Company news release
N3025

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