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ANNIE CAVANAGH AND DAVE MCCARTHY
A synthetic drug coated with co-polymers. Scanning electron micrograph.
What
does this image reveal?
This image shows the synthetic polymers used to coat a drug, either to target the release of the drug in a specific part of the digestive tract or to allow the drug to be released slowly. Polymers play an important role in reducing side-effects of drugs, as well as the number of times a patient needs to take a medication.
Scanning electron micrograph images are taken in black and white and are coloured later. The orange spheres contain the drug and the encapsulating co-polymers are coloured blue.
Why
was this striking image chosen?
"One of the reasons this image stood out as extraordinary is because it doesn't look like a natural image. It doesn't look as though it could possibly come from a microscope - it looks as though it must be computer-generated.
"This is because the particles - and those within them - are so smooth: they are artificial and have virtually no texture. The image really shows what technology can do in targeting drugs to specific purposes. This system is designed to delay the release of the drug that is contained in the smaller particles until it reaches the large intestine, where it will treat inflammatory bowel disease."
CATHERINE DRAYCOTT, JUDGING PANEL
PAUL APPLETON
These finger-like structures in the small intestine of a mouse have been cropped at the tips and stained with fluorescent dyes to distinguish between different components of the cells. The cell nuclei are blue, while the red stain shows actin, a protein that covers the surface of each villus. Multiphoton fluorescent micrograph.
"This image shows some of the structures that are present in all of our intestines," explains Paul Appleton, the image creator. "We have millions and millions of exactly these same structures inside us."
Paul and his team produced this image, and others like it, to assist in their understanding of how changes in cells in colon tissue can lead to the formation of tumours. "Scientists have to characterise normal tissue before they can look for changes in abnormal tissue," he says. "This example is of the villi from normal small intestinal tissue."
How
did the scientist make this image?
Paul and his team used an imaging technique called multiphoton microscopy, which allows them to look deep into thick tissue. "With other techniques, you'd have to physically cut the tissue, but we want to see how it looks intact so that it's more biologically relevant," he explains.
Multiphoton and confocal microscopy are non-invasive fluorescent imaging techniques that use lasers of different wavelengths to excite the sample and produce the image. To find out more, watch this video explaining the process.
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SPIKE WALKER
Aspirin is widely used for minor pain relief and to prevent heart attacks, strokes and blood clots. Essentially, it thins the blood by preventing platelets, which normally form clots to repair damaged blood vessels, from binding together. Light micrograph.
did the judges choose this image?
"Because aspirin is an everyday substance, you wouldn't expect it to produce such an amazing image. But when I first saw this image, it reminded me of one in BBC 'Focus' magazine of salt pans in a desert. It looked like an exotic, slightly unreal, computer-generated landscape - and to then find out that it was aspirin crystals grabbed me straight away.
"My brief in a magazine is for the reader to look at an image and say, 'Wow, that looks amazing,' and then ask, 'What is it?' For me, this image leads you to find out more about what it is, and how it was made."
JAMES CUTMORE, JUDGING PANEL
did Spike make this image?
To create crystals of aspirin, Spike takes pure aspirin powder and heats it to melting on a microscope slide. Once it is liquid, he slides a thin slip over the top of the aspirin, which forms these intriguing circular shapes. Vivid colours are created by the use of crossed polarising filters on the light microscope.
Watch this video on how Spike makes his light microscopy images.
ANNE-KATRIN PURKISS
Professor Sir Harold Kroto on the day after his Nobel Prize was announced - he received the 1996 Nobel Prize for Chemistry along with Robert Curl and Richard Smalley for discovering spherical fullerines, the carbon structures known as 'Buckyballs'. Photograph.
does this image show?
In this image Sir Harold Kroto sits in his seminar room, with his writing scrawled on the blackboard behind him.
In the foreground, models of fullerines - molecules composed completely of carbon - are arranged. Harold Kroto, Robert Curl and Richard Smalley discovered the first fullerine, C60, also known as buckminsterfullerene. It was named after architect Richard Buckminster Fuller, who invented the design of the geodesic dome, which Buckyballs resemble.
Buckyballs and other fullerines are used in materials science, electronics and nanotechnology and are widely researched today.
did the photographer get this picture?
"The Central Office of Information's Overseas Press Service commissioned an official colour picture and I shot an image on black and white for my own archive. Some of his students helped me to arrange the models in the foreground.
"When Sir Harry arrived, he was very short of time but obviously in his element surrounded by models, students and blackboard. I think this image captured the atmosphere best and I hope it shows Sir Harry how his students at the time would remember him."
This image highlights the basket of nerve fibres at the end of a hair follicle. Sensory nerves allow us to detect stimuli such as movement, pressure and pain. Light micrograph.
was this a special winner?
This image received a Special Award because it is technically very difficult to achieve. Spike had to capture and combine 27 images in order to detail the complete width of the 'basket' of fibres shown here.
But the judges agree that there is more to it than just technique: "Imagery in itself is beautiful - you can see it if you want to see it. The aim here is going beyond simply trying to describe and explain, which many scientific images are about. What makes an image really interesting is when it's not completely explicit - or there are alternatives, other explanations, or it leaves an ambiguity in your mind," says judge Beau Lotto.
This sample of skin was prepared by being treated with silver nitrate and then 'developed' like photographic film. Because the sample was so thick, Spike had to create an overall image from 27 different 'stacked' images to cover the entire width of the basket of nerve fibres.
Spike uses light microscopy to make his images. Watch a video in which he explains how images like these are made are made.
This seed is from a bird of paradise plant ('Strelitzia reginae'). Native to South Africa, the plant has a distinctive orange and blue flower, resembling an exotic bird, from which it takes its name. Scanning electron micrograph.
does a bird of paradise plant look like fully flowered?
The bird of paradise plant, also known as the crane flower, is depicted here in bloom as part of a series of watercolours with 19th-century characteristics.
was this image first created?
"I am a botanical artist so plants, pollens and seeds are my passion. I was commissioned to paint a watercolour of a bird of paradise plant, so I sent off to a specialist nursery to obtain the seeds in case I had to grow one. It turns out I didn't because a local nursery had a magnificent specimen already.
"When the seeds arrived, they were so beautiful and different that I thought they would make an interesting electron micrograph image."
ANNIE CAVANAGH
This image shows capillaries, or small blood vessels, which act as the connective network between arteries and veins. They are often found as large networks supplying organs with oxygen and other nutrients, and removing carbon dioxide. Light micrograph.
"These capillaries are from a special structure in the eye known as the ciliary body," explains image creator Spike Walker. "The eye is composed of two chambers, anterior and posterior, which are separated by the iris and the lens. The front chamber is full of a liquid called aqueous humour that provides most of the nutrients for the lens and the cornea. This liquid is secreted by the tiny holes within these capillaries of the ciliary body."
The microscope slide that Spike used to create this image was prepared around the 1890s - the slide was acquired from a retired histologist. The cillary body in an ox's eye has been dissected away from the lens and laid onto the slide.
The bright red colour of the capillaries is visible owing to a dye - likely to be carmine dye - which was injected into the artery that supplied the capillaries.
Due to the thickness of the sample, this image was created from a stack of images that were combined to give the structure a 3D appearance.
BILL MCCONKEY
Collage of a digitally enhanced pencil drawing of the human heart and photographs of different brass instruments. Digital artwork.
was the idea behind this image?
"If you look at the body, with its bones, veins, muscles, arteries, lungs and heart, it looks like a complex but beautifully ornate machine. This conjured up the design and elegance of machinery around the turn of the last century, such as steam trains and clockwork devices.
"Scientific illustration can be austere or cold - a case of informational value taking precedent over any artistic one. When I created this image of a mechanical heart, I saw the concept as something far more personal, and as such is an idea I've returned to again and again."
has the heart been viewed throughout history?
Wellcome Collection's first exhibition, 'The Heart', looked at the evolution of our understanding of the heart. Though modern medical science has taught us that much of the power and influence attributed to the heart actually lies in the brain, we are reluctant to let go of the notion that the heart is the home of our emotions and true character.
JACKIE LEWIN, EM UNIT, UCL MEDICAL SCHOOL, ROYAL FREE CAMPUS
This image of the liver shows blood vessels called sinusoids as long pink channels, brown tissue that is important in the production of bile, and the channels - shown as thin green grooves - that carry the bile towards the small intestine to help digestion. Scanning electron micrograph.
"There are two things that stand out about this image. First is that it is so clear. Being a scanning electron microscope image, it shows the surface and the shape of the specimen that is put into the microscope in very high definition. The small red blood cells and the thin bile vessels are shown very clearly.
"Secondly, the way in which the scientist has coloured the image has particularly enhanced it - making the internal structure of this vital organ even more clear to the viewer. Scanning electron microscope images are black and white, so there's a specific skill in adding colour."
was this image made?
This image was made with a scanning electron microscope, which bounces electrons off the surface of its subject and allows a significant amount of detail to be captured. The resulting image is black and white, so any colour is added at the discretion of the scientist.
Watch this video to find out more about how scanning electron microscope images are made.
TIM MOHUN, NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR MEDICAL RESEARCH, MRC
3D image of a developing embryonic mouse head at age 14.5 days. High-resolution episopic microscopy 3D reconstruction.
was this chosen as a special winner?
"This image won in recognition of the value of the technique rather than the aesthetics of the image. What caught my attention was the resolution of the 3D image - it looks impressive. And from the point of view of developmental biology, this new tool can illustrate much more effectively the impact that certain mutations may have on the anatomy of the mouse embryo. Usually you can only see a section, but by exposing the same reconstruction through different filters, you can actually see in 3D view - from many angles - the developmental defect."
GONZALO BLANCO, JUDGING PANEL
does this look like in 3D?
This movie of the head of a mouse embryo at 14.5 days post-coitum highlights how much detail can be observed at this stage of development. For example, the pores of future whiskers are visualised as small bumps across the snout and various vessels connecting the eye, including the optic nerve, are clearly observed, but it is clear at this stage that the eyelids have yet to form.
was this image and animation created?
These images were created using high-resolution episcopic microscopy. Samples are embedded in plastic stained with a fluorescent dye. Each time a fine section of the sample is sliced away, an image of the remaining sample is captured. These images are then put together to create a 3D animation of the external and internal structure of the sample.
Watch a video explaining how the technique is performed.
This image shows sperm and an egg (or ovum) at the moment of conception by in vitro fertilisation (IVF). The egg is surrounded by protective cumulus cells around the outside surface, coloured yellow. The sperm need to penetrate the membrane surrounding the egg, called the zona pellucida, if successful fertilisation is to occur. Light micrograph.
is this image so powerful?
The way in which this image was presented grabbed the judges' attention. "I think it's an image that possibly all the judges had seen before - but the clarity of the image was what impressed me," says James Cutmore. "You can see all the processes that are going on in the image, and the colours are also very beautiful."
Catherine Draycott agrees: "One of the things that makes this image so strong is the colour. Many images like this that are light micrograph images are just pale shades of blue and grey, with a little bit of iridescence possibly around the edge of the egg cell. But this one is so incredibly vivid."
was reproduction illustrated in the past?
In the 17th century, Dutch scientists observed eggs and sperm through early microscopes. Two groups formed - the ovists and homunculists - who believed that a preformed baby was contained in the egg or the sperm. This image (1694) by Nicolas Hartsoeker (1656-1725) shows a sperm carrying a homunculus ('small man').
THERESIA HOFER
Amchi Tala, a Tibetan doctor, holding precious medical books in a remote region of Western Tibet: the 'Gyu Shi' ('Four Tantras'), the fundamental Tibetan medical classic written in the 12th century, and a manuscript on compounding medicines, written by previous generations of Amchi Tala's medical family. Photograph.
do these manuscripts look like?
Some later commentaries to the 12th-century core Tibetan medical text 'Gyu Shi' contain illustrations such as the one below. The drawings depict the body of medical knowledge – materia medica – of plants and animals used in the production of Tibetan medicine.
difficult was it to capture this image?
"A co-researcher and I sought out Amchi Tala through a circuitous route through a remote, rural region of western Tibet. To reach his village, we rented a little tractor to cope with the rough terrain, but we still had to get off and walk through an ice-cold river, fed from the snow-melt of the Himalayas.
"As is the case in most traditional Tibetan houses, Amchi Tala's rooms were quite dark, so we took his photograph on the flat roof of his house. In the background we see the mountains surrounding the village and the fuel - priceless in the punishing winter - stored on his neighbour's house."
ANNE WESTON, LONDON RESEARCH INSTITUTE, CANCER RESEARCH UK
A single cell grown from a culture of lung epithelial cancer cells. The purple spheres are 'blebs': irregular bulges where the cell's internal scaffolding - its cytoskeleton - becomes unlinked from the surface membrane. Scanning electron micrograph.
work are we doing on cancer?
Organisations across the world continue to look for a cure for cancer. Cancer Research UK, the charity behind this image, is dedicated to beating cancer through research.
As part of this aim, Cancer Research UK, in partnership with the Wellcome Trust and the University of Cambridge, has founded the Gurdon Institute in Cambridge. There, scientists are studying developmental biology - how cells develop and maintain their normal function - and cancer, the result of a cell breaking loose from its correct controls and becoming abnormal.
far have we come in looking at cancer?
Modern imaging techniques such as electron microscopy allow scientists to examine how tissues and cells are changed by cancer and other diseases. Previously, illustrations were used to show cancer's destructive nature - this 1888 image from W Fox's 'Pathological Anatomy of the Lungs' shows pneumonia with cancer of the lung and bronchial gland.
IVOR MASON
These circular structures are regions of compact bone from a human femur. Compact bone forms a hard outer shell around the spongy bone that makes up the marrow space in the centre. Light micrograph.
The image shows compact bone, which is solid in appearance. It is composed of a layered matrix of organic substances and inorganic salts that form around an intricate network of vasculature called Haversian canals, shown in red. Together with the layers of compact bone, they form units called osteons. The tiny black spaces contained the osteocytes, or living bone cells - they appear black as the cells are lost during processing, leaving the holes within the bone that they once occupied. Air is often trapped inside these holes during specimen preparation, giving the cavities a dark appearance because of optical refraction.
"This image is naturally striking. No colour has been added to the specimen, yet the vascular canals almost appear as though they are bleeding.
"The structure and striations of the bone are also intriguing because of the type of image it is. Many images of bone are scanning electron micrographs or transmission electron micrographs, which magnify the specimen at a cellular level. Here, we have a light micrograph image, and it's as if you're looking at something halfway between what you can see with the naked eye and with a scanning electron microscope. You feel as though you're seeing the specimen's real texture and colour."
Plankton, small organisms that drift in the oceans, seas and fresh water. Many types of plankton, such as these, are microscopic, but some, such as jellyfish, are very large. Light micrograph.
do earlier drawings of plankton look like?
Robert Hooke recorded the first microscopic images in his 1665 book 'Micrographia'. The discovery that many organisms are invisible to the naked eye changed how people viewed the world around them. This etching by William Heath (1795-1840) shows a lady horrified by the creatures in the murky Thames waters.
did Spike get this image?
"The sample came from a local reservoir and was captured using a plankton net, which helps to concentrate the sample. These organisms are alive and move very fast, so I used an electronic flash to capture them in this seemingly serene state. Rheinberg illumination, which uses coloured discs to provide vibrant colours to either the specimen or the background, was used to make the plankton visible against this brilliant blue background."
This image shows two red blood cells. The one in the front has been affected by sickle-cell anaemia, and displays the characteristic sickle shape (a flattened 'C' shape) common to the disease. Scanning electron micrograph.
"This is such a graphic portrayal of what happens to red blood cells when the person is suffering from sickle-cell anaemia. They turn into flattened, long, thin, pseudo-crescent sickle-shaped cells. And in this image, it's so well depicted because the diseased cell is sitting next to a normal blood cell.
"To show this using a scanning electron microscope means you're essentially talking about an image of two cells, so it's incredibly magnified in order to get this level of detail."
does sickle-cell anaemia affect the body?
Sickle-cell anaemia is a genetic disorder caused by a mutation in the haemoglobin gene. Red blood cells are usually round, but people with two copies of the mutated gene have rigid, sickle-shaped red cells that cause serious health problems including anaemia and blocked blood vessels. People with one copy of the mutated gene - known as sickle-cell trait - have some affected red cells, but are more resistant to infection by the malaria parasite. As a result, sickle-cell trait is common in countries where malaria is prevalent, an example of an adaptive evolutionary response to disease.
OLIVER BURSTON
A group of scientists manipulating a strand of DNA, modelled and rendered in 3D software. Digital artwork.
is the artist trying to illustrate here?
"This is a giant DNA helix being unravelled. The basic idea is that it's being modified and corrected. The rough, rusty metal is at the top and it's being chrome-plated as you go down and manipulated. It's being reconstituted and made better.
"There's an element of responsibility when illustrating science - there's a fine line between representation as a way of elucidating an idea and the representation of 'reality'. We often think we know what scientific things look like, but what we really know is what's been presented to us by an illustrator or an artist. This is simply 'my version' of DNA."
far have we come in illustrating DNA?
This illustration of DNA is a simple pencil drawing by Francis Crick, drawn at the time of the discovery of its structure in 1953. This sketch shows the double-stranded helix shape of DNA, which has now become an icon for genetics. Today, computer-aided design allows more complex depictions of this fundamental molecule of life, and 3D modelling enables the investigation of the properties of its structure.
Damaged skin cells from a hand (Anne Weston's own) scalded by boiling soup. The original image was black and white; the pink colour has been added later. Scanning electron micrograph.
was this image chosen by the judges?
"By looking at this image and reading its background, the effect of stretching and shrinking that the blister has had on the membrane on the cell is quite clear - how much a cell can put up with and still keep its expected 3D shape. You can see all the wrinkles, which are there as a result of skin bloating and coming back to normal shape. The membrane has stretched to the limit.
"The artificial colouring is subtle but very effective. This reddish tint adds a bit of drama to the image - it was black and white originally. You can sense some heat to it."
did Anne create this image?
Anne works in the electron microscopy unit at Cancer Research UK's laboratory in London. For this image she used scanning electron microscopy, which allows a great amount of detail. Watch this video on how scanning electron microscopy is done.
MEDICAL ILLUSTRATION DEPARTMENT, LEICESTER ROYAL INFIRMARY
A premature baby surrounded by medical equipment and a teddy. Photograph.
"The photograph of the neonate was taken for an information leaflet given to parents whose infants would be embarking on a care programme on the Neonatal Unit. The photograph serves to illustrate that even with the veritable arsenal of complex equipment surrounding this very small and vulnerable child, there is still a very important place for the cuddly toy."
GORDON MCLEOD, MANAGER/DIRECTOR, MEDICAL ILLUSTRATION DEPARTMENT, LEICESTER ROYAL INFIRMARY
"This is a very powerful image, but it isn't apparent straight away. When you first look, it's very confusing. There's a lot of detail, and the baby is hidden by all the apparatus around it, as even the eyes are covered.
"Once you look closer, your eyes are led in by all the tubes and wires coming in towards, and away from, the baby. Eventually you reach the teddy bear, and see the little hand, and your eyes are led up to the huge eye mask over the baby's eyes. It takes a while to interpret, but its impact slowly grows as your eyes move around it."
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