Project | »AlgaeSort«

Yokogawa and Fraunhofer IZI-BB integrate single-cell injection with low-input, image-activated cell sorting

Yokogawa Electric Corporation and Fraunhofer IZI-BB signed a framework agreement in December 2025 to start a cooperation and streamline future joint activities. In a first project, two technologies shall be combined towards an end-to-end workflow that connects precise injection of material into single cells with downstream sorting and the establishment of clonal cell lines. Thereafter, Yokogawa aims to establish an algal cell factory.

© Fraunhofer IZI-BB
Schematic representation of the gentle, low-loss, image-activated cell sorting process for algae.
© Fraunhofer IZI-BB
The marine alga Tetraselmis chuii will be used as a model for this project.

Yokogawa’s Single Cellome™ Unit SU10 is a microscope add-on for direct injection of foreign substances or genetic material into a single cell’s cytoplasm or the nucleus. Combining this exciting technology with a suitable downstream process to isolate and clone successfully manipulated cells represents a major step forward.

Fraunhofer IZI-BB provides such a technology, suitable for low-input, image-activated cell sorting (IMAGO project - www.cellsorting.fraunhofer.de). The technology performs two-way sorting based on high-resolution, AI-supported cell classification and offers high biocompatibility by operating under low shear stress in physiological media.

Single-cell deposition has long been a focus at Fraunhofer IZI-BB. The joint project AlgaeSort provides an ideal match with Yokogawa to implement and demonstrate this sorting technology and to showcase its seamless combination with SU10. 

AlgaeSort will validate the following workflow:

  • directed dye injection into individual algal cells using Yokogawa’s Single Cellome Unit™ SU10
  • automated low-loss sorting of labelled cells and single-cell deposition using Fraunhofer’s low-input, image-activated cell sorting
  • establishment of a viable, clonal algal populations derived from the cells individually manipulated in Yokogawa’s SU10 system

In the project, Fraunhofer IZI-BB will also leverage more than 20 years of in-house algal expertise and the CCCryo Culture Collection of Cryophilic Algae curated in Potsdam. Once AlgaeSort has demonstrated the seamless interplay between the two technologies, the partners will move on to realize Yokogawa’s aim of an algal cell factory for the production of  industrially relevant metabolites.