#image competition

Firing Up

As if guided by fire, a procession of cells threads its way slowly up the centre of the cavernous embryo. A high-powered microscope highlights early sensory organ cells (green), as they move into place, having spilt away from a pool of anterior placode cells, a precious form of early stem cell with the potential to become everything from nerve to bone. Once migrated into place, these will populate the tissues of this early zebrafish, just as similar cells do in human embryos. This time-lapse video (captured over eight hours) also shows flame-like melanocytes settling below the developing skin. Zebrafish make excellent model organisms – sharing many of our genes and providing developmental biologists with a vital window onto the delicate early stages of life.

Written by John Ankers

Video by Dr. Eduardo Zattara - 1st Place in the Nikon Small World in Motion Competition 2022

CONICET National Scientific and Technical Research Council Bariloche, Rio Negro, Argentina

Video copyright held by Dr. Eduardo Zattara

Dancing Bones

While scientists and artists often learn from bringing their disciplines together, sometimes they can stand back and let the science create the art. These microtubules are bendy 'bone-like' protein structures usually found propping up the cell’s cytoskeleton – but inside this wheel-shaped channel, they appear to dance. Adapting their movement to this new environment, they take on a liquid swirl like noodles in a pan (although 10,000 times smaller). This is a striking example of active matter – the microtubules synchronise themselves into waves of movement similar to collective behaviour seen in swarms and shoals elsewhere in nature. Controlling such fluids may be a way to extract energy from their motion, which may open the way to drive tiny motors and engines inside or outside our cells.

Written by John Ankers

Video by Ignasi Vélez-Ceron Dr. Jordi Ignés & Dr. Francesc Sagués, 5th place in Nikon Small World in Motion comp 2022

University of Barcelona Department of Materials Science and Physical Chemistry Barcelona, Spain

Video copyright held by Ignasi Vélez-Ceron Dr. Jordi Ignés & Dr. Francesc Sagués

Time Flies

The fruit fly Drosophila shares many genes in common with us – it has fewer, but the processes they define in development are similar, simpler versions of our own with many lessons to share. In these developing Drosophila brains, researchers watch as, under a high-powered microscope, coloured stains highlight proteins in the early nervous system (green), with DNA inside cells in blue. Highlighted in some of the red areas, synapses are the junctions where neurons meet to pass on 'messages' in the form of bursts of chemicals called neurotransmitters. The team investigate how these synapses change over time – their synaptic plasticity – guiding more or less 'traffic' through these junctions. This may be a clue to how memories are formed, maintained and altered over time, for the flies and as we develop and age.

Written by John Ankers

Second place image by Jeff Lee, Ian Davis Lab, Dept of Biochemistry, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

Image category of the University of Oxford's Department of Biochemistry Centenary Scientific Imaging Competition

Image copyright held by Jeff Lee

Related research published in Journal of Cell Biology, May 2023

Impressive Feet

Often capturing a picture is about patience and preparation. This embryonic foot from a Madagascar giant day gecko (Phelsuma grandis) was first ‘cleared’, using chemicals to sluice away opaque molecules, leaving its delicate early tissues behind. Captured on a high-powered microscope, hundreds of high-resolution images are stitched together. The final image reveals chemical stains highlighting the gecko’s early nerves (blue) and other tissues including bone and skin in warmer colours. Geckos are still revealing their secrets to developmental biologists fascinated by the ability to regenerate limbs after amputation. Comparing the steps of this impressive feat to human healing may lead to fresh approaches to dealing with spinal injury. Elsewhere engineers are also taking inspiration from the gecko’s foot – creating sticky robots than can grip onto wet surfaces like those in and around the human body.

Written by John Ankers

Image by Grigorii Timin & Dr. Michel Milinkovitch – 1st Place in Nikon Small World 2022 Photomicrography Competition

Laboratory of Artificial & Natural Evolution, Department of Genetics and Evolution, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland

Image copyright held by Grigorii Timin & Dr. Michel Milinkovitch

Start and Fin

Zebrafish are a trusty model organism for developmental biologists looking to draw parallels with humans. They share many of our genes but they’re also transparent, making their delicate early stages easier to examine. Pictured under a high-powered microscope, this developing tail fin hosts early nerve cells (neurons, green) shaping part of the fish’s peripheral nervous system. Cells and chemicals in the surrounding extracellular matrix (ECM, purple) are likely to help – research shows a role for the ECM in guiding neurons into place and encouraging growth. Here, some parts of the ECM have been genetically modified to show researchers where their fluorescent forms settle. Studying the interaction with peripheral nerves may shed new light on the morphogenesis, or pattern forming that takes place in early development, in fish and humans alike.

Written by John Ankers

Image by Dr. Daniel Wehner & Julia Kolb – 17th Place in Nikon Small World 2022 Photomicrography Competition

Regeneration Group, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light Department of Biological Optomechanics Erlangen, Bayern, Germany

Image copyright held by Dr. Daniel Wehner & Julia Kolb

Tongue Twisters

Biofilms are thriving microscopic communities – hordes of microbes communicating, trading chemicals, moving and growing stronger together because of their diverse makeup. Here coloured stains highlight different species of bacteria as they colonise an epithelial cell from a human tongue. Pictured under a high-powered microscope, it looks surprisingly like a tongue itself, but is around 10,000 times smaller. Our mouths are home to upwards of 700 types of bacteria, and this oral microflora is influenced by what we eat as well as our general oral health. Learning more about biofilms will help doctors and dentists improve oral medicine, but also teach us general principles about how bacteria live side by side, with a view to breaking up certain types of dangerous biofilms in hospitals and public spaces.

Written by John Ankers

Image by Dr. Tagide deCarvalho, – 19th Place in Nikon Small World 2022 Photomicrography Competition

University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) Keith R. Porter Imaging Facility Baltimore, Maryland, USA

Image copyright held by Dr. Tagide deCarvalho

On the Battlefield

Deep inside a sarcoma tumour, cancer cells and immune cells are squaring up for a fight. This image shows what’s known as a tertiary lymphoid structure: a collection of immune cells that have infiltrated the tumour and formed a kind of ‘fortress’ inside it from which they are preparing to attack the cancer cells. This image was created using a technique called multiplexed immunohistochemistry, which highlights the activity of various immune cells in different colours and can reveal how they are communicating with each other. T cells, highlighted in pink, play a vital role in helping other immune cells recognise and destroy dangerous cancer cells. These T cells also have high levels of a molecule called OX40 (red), which enhances their activity against cancer cells. Patients whose tumours also have OX40 may be more likely to benefit from new immunotherapy drugs that enhance the cancer-fighting powers of the immune system.

Written by Kat Arney

Image voted Judges' Winner by David Mansfield, ICR Translational Immunotherapy Team, Division of Radiotherapy and Imaging

The Institute of Cancer Research, Kensington, London, UK

Image copyright held by the photographer

ICR Science and Medical Imaging Competition, 2021

Get Ova It

This prize-winning microscope image shows a pair of female fruit fly ovaries packed full of developing eggs, highlighted using fluorescent dyes. While an insect’s ovaries may seem a long way from our own human organs, they can reveal a lot about the underlying biological principles guiding how cells develop and specialise in other species, including our own. Fruit fly ovaries contain three different types of stem cells, which keep multiplying throughout a lifetime. In fact, researchers have been studying fruit fly ovaries for more than 60 years to figure out how stem cells work and understand what happens when they go wrong. As well as being able to fluorescently mark different ovarian stem cells and track them down the microscope, it’s also relatively simple to do genetic engineering in flies to understand how different genes contribute to maintaining stem cell populations, providing vital insights into infertility and other health conditions.

Written by Kat Arney

Image by Andy Yu Shi Li, winner of the Life Sciences Category, Royal Microscopical Society Scientific Imaging Competition 2021

Ma Group, Department of Genetics, Wellcome Trust/Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute, Henry Wellcome Building of Cancer and Developmental Biology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

Image copyright held by Andy Yu Shi Li