The Wellcome Image Awards – The Drama Of Microscopic Organisms

“…Cause’ I’m Not That Kind Of Whore.”

Colour-enhanced image of red blood cells leaking from a ruptured blood vessel

Selected by a team of expert judges from recent acquisitions by Wellcome Images, the winning pictures show a wide variety of subjects, normally invisible to the naked eye, revealing new layers of complexity and making the ordinary extraordinary.

Throughout history scientists have presented their findings in fascinating pictures – Hooke’s ‘Micrographia’ for example. The Wellcome Image Awards present some of the latest of these offerings, astounding not only to the non-specialist, but also to those who produce these images as part of daily research and investigation.These images have been captured using both traditional and cutting-edge imaging techniques, from the simple light microscope to the latest in computer-aided imaging. We can only look forward to the future when new advances will make possible even more astonishing pictures.

A fly on sugar crystals

The new technique of Optical Projection Tomography enables stained whole embryos and small pieces of tissue to reveal internal structures without the need for cutting sections, as shown here on this mouse embryo

Crystals of oxidised Vitamin C (dehydroascorbic acid)

Villi from the human small intestine

Liquid crystal seen under polarised light
Colon cancer cells growing in a dish
Internal structure of an HIV particle
Trachea from a silkworm
A clump of breast cancer cells. The blue cells are actively growing whereas the yellow ones are in the process of dying by programmed cell death (apoptosis)
A clump of prostate cancer cells. The blue-green cells are growing, whereas the pink ones are dying by programmed cell death (apoptosis)

Colour-enhanced image of a single breast cancer cell

A carpet of red blood cells clearly showing their typical biconcave disc shape

A molecular model showing all the different molecules, both RNA (turquoise, green and yellow) and protein (purple and orange), that make up the ribosome, the RNA and protein found in all cells

Meningitis bacteria