Vancouver, British Columbia, April 9, 2002 - Burcon NutraScience Corporation (CDNX: BU) today announced it has filed a patent application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office covering ten functional properties that are expected to make canola protein isolate a valuable ingredient in both food and non-food uses.

This patent filing is potentially significant, as it provides a new layer of protection over and above Burcon's existing patents, which cover the process required to commercially produce canola protein isolate. The objective of this approach is to protect the most desirable and commercially relevant functional features of Burcon's lead product, PurateinTM.

"We believe we are the first to have a viable process to commercially produce a canola protein isolate," said Johann Tergesen, Burcon's President & COO. "The novel set of proteins produced by our process provides us with what we believe is a wide-open space in the more protective patenting areas of application and composition patents."