The ability to expand our perception of the world could be a matter of taking a closer view of the things we are familiar with. Technology is transforming from MRI and Scanning Electron Microscopes, which utilize lasers with a focus to interact with the surface of a sample to provide nano-sized resolution allowing scientists and medical researchers to explore our fascinating and stunning world (sometimes assisted by a bit of Photoshop).
Three academics who took home the top prize at the Wellcome Image Awards tell us what they did to achieve their reputation.
Kevin Mackenzie, Microscopy Manager, Institute of Medical Sciences, University of Aberdeen
I’m always looking for new and intriguing specimens to study and when I suffered from kidney stones a couple of years ago, I was able to get one. I decided to take a picture using the Light Microscope, Micro CT, and also under the Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). The resultant image was captured using Zeiss MA10 SEM and falsely colored using Adobe Photoshop. The dimension of the stone is 2 millimeters across (which is very small for kidney stones).
Kidney stones are formed when minerals, salts, and the chemicals present in urine (for instance, calcium oxalate and uric acid) get clumped together and form solidified. Kidney stones that are small are typically removed naturally, while larger stones can end up within the kidney or the tubes that move urine out of the body.
I was thrilled to have two images chosen for the awards. One was a Scanning Electron Micrograph of a single head louse eggs attached to human hair as well as one of a Micro CT scan of a medieval (so that it was more than one thousand years ago) jawbone.
Zeynep Saygin Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT
My image illustrates the nerve fibers, also known as wiring, that are present in the human brain in its healthy state. Neuron cells interact with one via these fibers, and you can see them within every person using the specially designed MRI scan. The colors represent how the fibers move they travel in: blue for those which travel upwards and downwards and green from front to back and red for the right to left.
I am constantly amazed by the amount and the complex nature of these nerve fibers and what kind of information do they carry in order to orchestrate intricate cognitive processes? My work combines these pictures of connectivity with neural response patterns to comprehend the intricate brain’s circuits and how it influences our personality.
Sergio Bertazzo, Junior Research Fellow, Imperial College London
This is a color-dependent density scanning electron micrograph that shows the surface of the human heart (aortic valve) tissue. The spherical particle shows the process of calcification. The orange color indicates the denser material (a calcified substance made from calcium phosphate) The structures in green are not as and are less dense (corresponding with the biological part in the tissues).
Its discovery that calcified particles prove that calcification within the cardio-vascular system can be much more complicated than a simple process for bone formation.
The best of the rest
Anders Persson, Director of the Centre for Medical Image Science and Visualisation at Linkoping University, Sweden
The overall winner The image that was chosen was made by a novel type of scan known as dual-energy computed tomography (DECT) angiography. Contrary to CT scans, DECT makes use of two sources for X-rays with different energy. They are then digitally recreated in 3D and are able to be rotated, cut, or magnified.
Khuloud T Al-Jamal Professor of Nanomedicine, Senior Lecturer and Izzat Suffian Ph.D., King’s College London
The Scanning Electron Micrograph of the collection of cancerous breast cells (in the blue) treated by nanometre-sized particles containing the anti-cancer drug Doxorubicin. This causes certain cell lines (in violet) to die by the process of programmed cell death. This is where cells die in a predictable, controlled manner. The activation of this process within cancer cells can decrease the size of the tumor.
Annie Cavanagh and David McCarthy, Microscopists
Scanning electron micrograph of the four-day-old embryo of a zebrafish. To get this picture, the zebrafish had to be physically fixed to the small stub (specimen holder) via its tail and swung to 65 degrees. Because zebrafish embryos are around 1cm long, making the whole embryo too large to be photographed in one image Three separate photos are required to be captured along its length and then stitched digitally. The color was added to the black-and-white image.
Chris Thorn, Medical Artist
The X-ray projection shows an adult brown bat, that was hunted down and killed by domestic cats. The bat’s size is approximately 5cm.
