Olympus has unveiled the winners of their second Global Image of the Year Life Science Light Microscopy Award, an annual competition that recognizes the best in life science imaging.

The contest launched on Sept. 15, 2020 with a call for users to submit their best life science microscopy images through Jan. 31, 2021. The winning images were selected from a record number of entries, nearly 700 submissions from 61 countries, states Olympus in a press release. All entries were evaluated on artistic and visual aspects, scientific impact and microscope proficiency.

“Not only did we see a record number of submissions, but the quality and creativity of those images were exceptional. It’s amazing to see the unexpected art people capture with a microscope,” says Satoshi Nakamura, Vice President of Scientific Solutions Global Marketing at Olympus Corporation.

Global & Regional winners

Werner Zuschratter from Germany was selected as the global winner for his eye-catching image of a whole rat embryo captured with a confocal microscope. Three regional prizes were awarded to XinPei Zhang (China) for Asia, Justin Zoll (USA) for the Americas and Grigorii Timin (Switzerland) for EMEA.

 

Global winner Olympus Image of the year

The global winner: Whole rat embryo three channel large scale confocal image of a fixed and cleared rat embryo. Two channels show different autofluorescence sources of the tissue, whereas the third channel shows the skeleton stained by alizarin red. The winning image was taken by Werner Zuschratter (Germany).

 

Regional winner Americas: Polarized light microscopy panorama of l glutamine and beta alanine crystals. The winning image was taken by Justin Zoll (U.S.A.).

 

Honorable Mentions

Honorable mentions include Jan Martinek (Czech Republic), Laurent Formery (France), Matt Inman (Australia), Sayantan Datta (India), Derek Sung (USA), YiXun Su (China), MingShu Zhang (China), Nadia Efimova (USA) and Walter Ferrari (Argentina).

 

IOTY 2020 Honorable France

Honorable France: Whole-mount immunofluorescence showing the muscles (cyan, F-actin) and the nervous system (yellows, acetylated tubulin) counterstained by the nuclei (blue, DNA) of a clarified and decalcified post-metamorphic sea urchin juvenile (Paracentrotus lividus). Photo: Laurent Formery (France)

 

IOTY 2020 Honorable China and USA

Left: Microfilament structure in U2OS labeled with fluorescent protein. Photo: MingShu Zhang (China). Right: Cultured neurons are a good model to test enzyme replacement therapy (ERT) for many neurological disorders. In this experiment Efimova looked at uptake of engineered enzyme in rat cortical neurons (staining of enzyme is not shown). MAP2 staining was added to visualize outlines of neurons. Photo: Nadia Efimova (USA)

 

IOTY 2020 Honorable India

The sample shows a dividing human embryonic kidney (HEK) 293 cell. Green marks the cellular boundary, red marks the mitochondria, while blue shows the separating chromosomes. Photo: Sayantan Datta (India)

About the Image of the Year (IOTY) Award

Olympus’ IOTY Award began in 2017 as the Image of the Year European Life Science Light Microscopy Award with the aim to celebrate both the artistic and scientific value of microscopy images. Today, the competition stays true to this mission by encouraging people across the world to look at scientific images in a new way, appreciate their beauty, and share images with others.