• ScreenSYS GmbH
  • Engesserstraße 4A
  • 79108 Freiburg
  • Germany
  • Phone: +49 (0)761 58539996
  • Fax: +49 (0) 215 115 19740
  • ue.sysneercs@ofni

Dr. Oleksandr Dovzhenko, CEO

About ScreenSYS

ScreenSYS GmbH is a green biotech company which enables innovative solutions for plant micropropagation especially in recalcitrant (difficult to handle) plant species. The unique, automated and AI-driven discovery platform from ScreenSYS taps the naturally existing potential to generate complete plants from single plant cells. It is based on pioneering research by Prof. Klaus Palme, co-founder of ScreenSYS GmbH and former lab head at the Department for Molecular Plant Physiology, Institute for Biology II, University of Freiburg and Dr. Oleksandr Dovzhenko, CEO of ScreenSYS, who invented the single plant cell handling and tracking platform. Using this innovative, disruptive technology, cell culture methods that are now indispensable in crop breeding and micropropagation are becoming significantly easier, faster and more cost-effective. The technology makes it possible to produce plants with homogeneous genetic makeups (so called double-haploid plants) from single plant cells and to produce thousands of plantlets from a very limited amount of plant material. These techniques allow better exploitation of genetic diversity and a significant shortening of the plant breeding process, which usually requires many years.

What is your motivation?

Single plant cells harbour the potential to develop into a whole plant. However, identification of suitable conditions consisting of optimal culture regimes and media by traditional methods remains largely intuitive, tedious, costly and time-consuming. The single-cell microscopy technology developed at ScreenSYS provides a fascinating novel avenue to follow and analyse the development of thousands of single plant cells simultaneously and to identify and predict developmental features essential for cellular reprogramming. The ScreenSYS team’s mission to expand the technology towards various plant species and to develop innovative tools to support breeders in speeding up the generation of novel plant traits with improved properties. This will help breeders and mankind to cope with rapidly changing environmental conditions, increasing prices for staple food and industrial crops and customer-specific demands to generate better plants: screening cells – improving plants.

“IZB provides a desired opportunity to efficiently combine laboratory and greenhouse research operations in the same premises. Proximity of plant breeders and biotechnology companies in the surrounding area provides excellent opportunities for ScreenSYS R&D advancement and business growth.”

Dr. Oleksandr Dovzhenko, CEO