FuturaGene Inc., a biotechnology company that is developing ways to grow crops in extremely unfavorable conditions, will keep headquarters at Purdue Research Park following its "graduation" from an incubator system where it started operations four years ago.

FuturaGene will move from the Business and Technology Center, the park's first incubator, to 1,400 square feet of office space at Vistech 1, a privately-owned building located at 1435 Win Hentschel Blvd.

"Moving to the new office reflects the amazing growth that the company has achieved in the last three years, such as expanding the operations globally and enlisting on the stock exchange in London," said Bruno Ruggiero, the company's chief executive officer.

In 2001 the company was formed from a joint research venture among scientists at three American universities - Purdue University, the University of Arizona and the University of Illinois. One of the four principal scientists involved with FuturaGene is Ray Bressan, a distinguished professor of plant physiology in Purdue's horticulture department.

"Loss due to drought costs billions of dollars annually," said Bressan, who is internationally recognized for his research into the physiology and molecular biology of salt and water stress on plants and disease-resistance toxins. "We're committed to maximizing the true genetic potential of crops."

FuturaGene obtained exclusive rights to commercialize their gene discoveries, which decode the plant genome to produce varieties of crops resistant to traditionally hostile environments - such as heavily salinated (salty) soil, drought, frost and fungal attack - while avoiding the introduction of foreign genes into plant species.

Founded in 2001, FuturaGene Inc. is a subsidiary of FuturaGene PLC (LSE:FGN), a company traded publicly on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) of the London Stock Exchange. In 2004, FuturaGene received a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I award in the amount of $80,000 to develop tomatoes with enhanced salt tolerance. The company has headquarters at Purdue Research Park, which was named the top research park in the nation by its peers at the Association of University Research Parks.