STONY BROOK, N.Y. June 23, 2017 – Applied DNA Sciences, Inc. (“Applied DNA,” “the company,” NASDAQ: APDN), is pleased to announce it has received an order to tag  27.5 million pounds of cotton to kick off the 2017/2018 ginning season, composed of three US cotton varietals. The three varietals are Pima, Delta and Acala, which fall under the Pimacott^®, HomeGrown™ LoneStar™ and HomeGrown Acala™ programs. The company expects to ship SigNature^® T DNA to mark 27.5 million pounds of cotton before the end of June.

“Now in our third season, Applied DNA’s SigNature T DNA has been meeting the need for supply chain traceability, transparency and trust within the cotton industry ecosystem with national retailers, their supply chain partners, and consumers. We are proud to continue to tag, test and track cotton for the 2017/2018 ginning season.” stated Dr. James A. Hayward, President and CEO of Applied DNA. “This order demonstrates our success in further entrenching SigNature T DNA in an established revenue-generating vertical and in extending the adoption of our proven technology platform. Although we cannot predict the timing of follow-on orders, conversations with our customers lead us to believe that additional opportunities to tag cotton during the 2017/2018 ginning season are likely.”

For this order, the customer has agreed to more customary and favorable payment terms, allowing for earlier revenue recognition than past cotton orders. This new order is incremental to DNA concentrate to tag 30 million pounds of cotton that was shipped during fiscal 2016 to establish an on-site reserve of SigNature T DNA before the harvest begins.

About Applied DNA Sciences
Applied DNA Sciences makes life real and safe by providing biotechnology-driven solutions to help protect products, brands, entire supply chains, and intellectual property of companies, governments and consumers from theft, counterfeiting, fraud and diversion. Patented botanical DNA solutions can be used to identify, tag, track, and trace products, to help assure authenticity, traceability and quality of products. SigNature DNA is at the heart of a family of uncopyable, security and authentication solutions such as SigNature® T and fiberTyping®, targeted toward textiles and apparel, DNAnet®, for anti-theft and loss prevention, and digitalDNA®, providing powerful track and trace. All provide a forensic chain of evidence, and can be used to prosecute perpetrators.

Go to adnas.com for more information, events and to learn more about how Applied DNA Sciences makes life real and safe. Common stock listed on NASDAQ under the symbol APDN, and warrants are listed under the symbol APDNW.

Forward-Looking Statements
The statements made by APDN in this press release may be “forward-looking” in nature within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements describe APDN’s future plans, projections, strategies and expectations, and are based on assumptions and involve a number of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the control of APDN. Actual results could differ materially from those projected due to our short operating history, limited financial resources, limited market acceptance, market competition and various other factors detailed from time to time in APDN’s SEC reports and filings, including our Annual Report on Form 10-K filed on December 14, 2015, and our subsequent quarterly reports on Form 10-Q filed on February 10, 2016, May 12, 2016 and August 11, 2016 which are available at www.sec.gov. APDN undertakes no obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements to reflect new information, events or circumstances after the date hereof to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, unless otherwise required by law.

Investor contact: Sanjay Hurry, LHAI,  212-838-3777

media contact: Angie Mathews, CGPR, 714-768-1140

program contact: MeiLin Wan, 631-240-8849

web: www.adnas.com

twitter: @APDN