We are pleased to announce the winners of the Light Microscopy Australia Image Competition in 2019. This year’s competitions was open to ALL optical microscopists based in Australia.

This resulted in over 100 submissions across the four categories available (Live Cell Imaging, Life Sciences, In Vivo Imaging, Materials Sciences). Each category will award a $400 first prize and a $200 second prize. We would like to thank the sponsors of each category, Optiscan, Zeiss Australia and Nikon for their support of the competition.

 

Life Science Category Winners
In Vivo Category Winners
Materials Science Category Winners

 

LIVE CELL CATEGORY

Proudly sponsored by Nikon

 

 

 

1ST PRIZE: Robert Ju, The University of Queensland

Highways – Fibroblast Growth Factor Receptor2 (Cyan) trafficking in and on the Endoplasmic reticulum network (orange). Spinning disk confocal microscopy, Ishikawa endometrial cancer cells, FGFR2b-eGFP, Sec61-mcherry.

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2ND PRIZE: Guneet Bindra, La Trobe University

The defence of defensins: how defensins induce tumour cell lysis – This video illustrates the membranolytic effects of innate immune molecules, defensins, on tumour cells. Most defensins lyse tumour cells by binding to membrane phosphoinositides, causing membrane tension and perturbation, resulting in blebbing, permeabilisation and lysis. Treatment of histiocytic lymphoma cells (U937) with the plant defensin NaD1 allows for the uptake of propidium iodide (PI), which coincides with the formation of membrane blebs, eventually causing cell death. The cells were stained with PKH67 membrane dye (green) and PI (orange).

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Commendation: Arianna Oddo, Monash University

The lucky 7 in biology – A549 lung epithelial cells (in green, stained with Wheat germ agglutinin) were grown in a lab-on-a-chip device and exposed for 24h to silica nanoparticles (in magenta, labelled with the Atto647N-CS-APTES dye). This image shows that lab-on-a-chip technology is compatible with live cell imaging. Number 7 is engraved along the microchannel and it allows to quickly identify the same position at different time points and to track single cells under live imaging conditions.

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Commendation: Arthur Chien, Macquarie University

Neuron blossoms – Time-lapse imaging of developing hippocampal neurons in culture were captured with DIC mode by Zeiss Axio Observe. Neuronal growth cones of developing axons are highly dynamic and motile that explore the extracellular environment and determine the direction of growth. Hence, growth cones are very important during embryonal and adult neurogenesis. To create this image varying colours have been used to reflect the actively turning or retracting of protrusions over time at growth cone and formed a blossom-like shape of structure.