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
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