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New Brunswick, New Jersey
March 26, 2003
Senesco Technologies, Inc.
(“Senesco” or the “Company”) (AMEX: SNT) today announced that it
was awarded Patent No. 6,538,182 from the U.S. Patent and
Trademark Office (the “PTO”) entitled “DNA Encoding A Plant
Deoxyhypusine Synthase, a Plant Eukaryotic Initiation Factor 5A,
Transgenic Plants and a Method for Controlling Senescence
Programmed Cell Death in Plants.”
Deoxyhypusine Synthase (“DHS”) and Eukaryotic Initiation
Factor 5A (“Factor 5A”) are two genes that the Company has used
successfully to delay natural and stress-induced plant
senescence (cell death), yielding several beneficial traits in a
wide variety of agricultural products. Senesco has employed its
genetic technology to increase crop yields and plant size, to
extend post-harvest freshness and to increase resistance to
environmental stresses in a wide variety of commercial crops.
The Company has established commercial relationships for use
of its gene technology in banana, lettuce, melon, alfalfa and
various tree species.
Bruce Galton, president and CEO of Senesco, commented, “The
issuance of our first U.S. patent is a major milestone for
Senesco. This not only validates that our research is both novel
and useful in the opinion of the PTO, it also allows us to
implement our technology with our partners and licensees while
protecting our intellectual property. We are developing our
technology with licensees in a wide variety of agricultural
crops and are in discussions with additional potential
commercial partners. In addition to this patent, we have
numerous divisional patent applications and continuations in
part pending with the PTO and internationally for agricultural
uses, as well as applications for certain human health
conditions.”
Senesco takes its name from the scientific term for the aging
of plant cells: senescence. The Company has developed technology
that regulates the onset of cell death. Delaying cell breakdown
in plants extends freshness after harvesting, while increasing
crop yields, plant size and resistance to environmental stress
for flowers, fruits and vegetables. The Company believes that
its technology can be used to develop superior strains of crops
without any modification other than delaying natural plant
senescence. Senesco has begun to explore ways to trigger or
delay cell death in mammals (apoptosis) to determine if the
technology is applicable in human medicine. Accelerating
apoptosis may have applications to development of cancer
treatments. Delaying apoptosis may have applications to certain
diseases such as Alzheimer’s, glaucoma, ischemia and arthritis,
among others. Senesco partners with leading-edge companies and
earns research and development fees for applying its
gene-regulating platform technology to enhance its partners'
products. Senesco is headquartered in New Brunswick, New Jersey,
and utilizes research laboratories at the University of Waterloo
in Ontario, Canada and the University of Colorado in Denver,
Colorado. |
