Evident announces 2021 Image of the Year Award winners
Evident, a wholly owned subsidiary of Olympus comprising its former Life Science and Industrial divisions, has unveiled the winners of its third Global Image of the Year Life Science Light Microscopy Award (Image of the Year Award) — an annual competition that recognises the best in life science imaging. The winners were selected from nearly 800 images submitted from 49 countries around the world.
The IOTY Award began in 2017 as the Image of the Year European Life Science Light Microscopy Award, with the aim to celebrate both the artistic and scientific value of microscopy images. Today the competition stays true to this mission by encouraging people around the world to look at scientific images in a new way, appreciate their beauty and share images with others.
Jan Martinek from the Czech Republic was selected as the global winner — receiving the grand prize of an Olympus SZX7 stereo microscope with a DP28 digital camera — for a glowing image of an Arabidopsis thaliana flower with pollen tubes growing through the pistil. The flower tissues were chemically cleared to reveal the pollen tubes stained with aniline blue (yellow fluorescence). Martinek chose to image this flower to highlight the beauty of science in plant cell research.
“As a plant cell biologist, I spend hours looking at plants under the microscope,” Martinek said. “I see a lot of beautiful images, like this flower of Arabidopsis thaliana with pollen tubes growing through the pistil to fertilise the ovules. However, I capture hundreds of pictures like this just to measure the lengths of the pollen tubes, and readers of my research articles will see only some boxplots comparing the pollination efficiency of different mutants.
“I am happy that thanks to the IOTY Award, my and others’ pictures of this fascinating microcosm get worldwide attention.”
There were also three regional winners, each of whom will receive an Olympus CX23 upright microscope. Asia-Pacific regional winner Daniel Han (Australia) imaged fern sori capsules with spores bursting out; Americas regional winner Ivan Radin (USA) submitted a deconvolved Z-stack of moss Physcomitrium patens protonemal cells; and EMEA regional winner Vasilis Kokkoris (the Netherlands) captured multinucleate spores of a soil fungus.
The Evident Life Science team said they were impressed by the fascinating specimens masterfully captured under the microscope, all of which were evaluated on artistic and visual aspects, scientific impact and microscope proficiency.
“I continue to be amazed by the creative images we see each year that turn life under the microscope into unique art pieces,” said Satoshi Nakamura, Vice President of Scientific Solutions Global Marketing at Evident. “We are honoured to receive so many stunning captures from around the world that visually blend artistic creativity and science. The winning images create a beautiful image gallery showcasing an incredible level of talent and technique at the microscope.”
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