CoolLED’s 5th Annual Image in an Image Competition
For the fifth year running, we once again enjoyed receiving many stunning entries for our competition,
where we look for what image you see inside an image, and not just the quality of the acquisition itself.
The prize is a brand new pE-400 LED Illumination System – simple bright white, and a controllable, cost-effective replacement for mercury and metal halide lamps.
Four powerful LEDs offer intense, broad-spectrum coverage for the most popular fluorophores, ranging from DAPI through YFP to Cy5.
Honourable Mentions
Following the initial round of entries, the CoolLED staff voted for their favourite.
Once our internal voting had closed, we were able to whittle the entries down to a top 6 and opened up the voting to the general public.
The top 6 were as follows…
The Winner
We received hundreds of votes for various images in the top 6, but with great pleasure, we can announce that the winner of our Image in an Image competition 2024 is…
Urša Uršič – Fireworks in a Crystal Ball
A color coded z-stack of microtubule asters in a droplet of cytoplasmic extract
The image was her first attempt in trying a lattice lightsheet microscope, using 488nm, 561nm and 640 lasers
About Our Winner
Urša is a PhD student in Jan Brugués’ lab. They are affiliated with the Cluster of Excellence Physics of Life (POL) at the Technical University of Dresden and the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG) in Dresden, Germany.
For her PhD project, she is studying cell division in large embryonic cells, using cytoplasmic extracts as a model system.
Tell us more about your facility
I am very passionate about light microscopy in general and feel incredibly fortunate to have access to many different systems and techniques. Our lab is equipped with a wide variety of microscopes, ranging from a classical transmission epifluorescence microscope and a spinning disk confocal microscope to an LC-Polscope and a single-objective lightsheet microscope. Additionally, we strive to modify existing techniques or develop new ones tailored to our specific needs in quantitative biology.
Beyond our own equipment, we also have access to state-of-the-art devices from the Light Microscopy Facility at MPI-CBG, as well as the Light Microscopy Facility at POL.
What equipment did you use to take your winning entry?
The winning image was, in fact, “only” a training sample for learning how to use the Zeiss Lattice Lightsheet 7 at the POL Light Microscopy Facility. Bert Nitzsche, the Light Microscopy Facility leader at POL, was training me on that microscope when we observed those stunning microtubule “fireworks” in my sample—something that had never appeared so clear on a spinning disk before.
The sample consists of a droplet of Xenopus laevis cytoplasmic extract with artificial centrosomes. The centrosomes nucleate microtubules, which are stained with additional labeled tubulin. The raw data was deskewed and deconvoluted, and the final image was produced as a z-projection of color-coded z-planes.
How did you feel when you found out you’d won?
I was thrilled to learn that our image won! Seeing beautiful patterns in my samples always brings so many positive feelings, and I hope viewers catch some of that excitement too. Nature is stunning on so many levels, but in our daily lives, we often overlook the microscopic structures and their incredible beauty. I am delighted that CoolLED is encouraging people to appreciate the beautiful, the funny, and the weird aspects of what microscopes reveal to us all around the world.
The award, the pE-400 Illumination System, will be greatly valued in our lab. We plan to use it with our LC-PolScope and epifluorescence system, which currently operates on a halogen lamp. I am confident it will enhance the quality of our images and significantly improve the user experience.
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