We are pleased to announce the winners of the LMA/VIA 2021 Image Competition.

This resulted in over 160 submissions across the si x categories Live Cell Imaging, Life Sciences, In Vivo Imaging, Materials Sciences, Super Resolution and Volume Imaging).

Each category awards a $400 first prize and a $200 second prize. We would like to thank the sponsors of each category, New Spec, Zeiss Australia, OptiScan , John Morris Group and Nikon Australia for their support of the competition.

Please follow the links below to see this years winners.

Live Cell Category Winners
Life Science Category Winners
In Vivo Category Winners
Materials Science Category Winners
Volume Imaging Category Winners

SUPER RESOLUTION CATEGORY

Proudly Sponsored by Nikon

1ST PRIZE

Ashley Rozario – Monash University

Earthly Nucleus. Mouse T cell fixed in formaldehyde and immunolabelled for lamin b1 with Alexa Fluor 647, and imaged using multiplane 3D dSTORM (via astigmatism) on a home-built widefield fluorescence  microscope.

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2ND PRIZE

Neftali Flores Rodriguez – Sydney Microscopy and Microanalysis, The University of Sydney

Actin Solar Power A fixed metaphase HeLa cell stained with A 647 Phalloidin and STED imaged using a Leica TCS SP 8 microscope equipped with a 100 x 1 40 NA STED White objective The probe was imaged with a 647 nm excitation running at 4 power, and with emission wavelength range set between 675 and 750 nm Fluorescence depletion used a 775 nm laser running at 20 output power Pinhole was set at 152 µm Image was then deconvolved with Huygens Professional and visualised with depth coded colouring using the Leica LASX software renderer

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DISTINCTION

Esther Miriklis – Monash University

Spider Like Separation of Human Chromosomes A human induced pluripotent stem cell captured undergoing mitosis Cellular DNA was labelled using the thymine analogue EdU 24 hours prior to fixation EdU visualisation occurred through direct conjugation using Alexa Fluor 647 azide The image was taken using direct stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy dSTORM on a bespoke single molecule microscope setup, rendered through the rapidSTORM software with a final pixel size of 20 nm and pseudo coloured based on localisation density (from low, purple, to high, white) The centre chromosomes appear less dense due to residing at a different Z position and thus not adequately captured in this single slice

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DISTINCTION

Juan Miguel Balbin – Royal Adelaide Hospital and The University of Adelaide

Caught in the Act Merozoite Invasion of the Host RBC Merozoites of the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum invade the red blood cell in distinct stages based on receptor ligand interactions From left to right, the merozoite must first reorient its apical tip to contact the RBC before committing to invasion and sealing off the membrane 3 D renders in IMARIS are included to illustrate membrane wrapping Imaged on a Zeiss LSM 800 in Airyscan mode in fixed cells stained with blue (DAPI), green (apical tip marker, AlexaFluor 488 red (merozoite membrane marker, AlexaFluor 555 magenta (red blood cell, CellTrace