1st Place

Pushing boundaries

Harsha Mahabaleshwar (LKCMedicine)

Two-day-old zebrafish embryos mounted end to end, and their developing fins imaged on Zeiss LSM800 – Axio Imager.Z2, using 40x W Plan-Apochromat objective, 488 nm and 561 nm lasers, and tile function. Images were stitched on Fiji/ImageJ and further processed using its maximum intensity projection, background subtraction and brightness-contrast functions to highlight the details.


2nd Place

Hungry Scientist's Ferrero Rocher

Natalie Yeo, Ng Chun Yi and Christine Cheung (LKCMedicine)

Human patient-derived endothelial cells coating a microcarrier bead within a fibrin gel, stained for F-actin (red) and nuclei (cyan). Fibrin gels were ~2mm-thick and seeded in an 8-well chambered coverslip well. Image was acquired with an inverted laser scanning confocal microscope (LSM800, Carl Zeiss) using a Plan-Apochromat 20x/0.80 objective lens. Two-channel Z-stack images (AF568 and DAPI) of beads were captured using ZEN software (blue edition, Carl Zeiss) with 100 – 200 Z-slices were acquired for the bead. To correct for differences in signal intensity across the large Z-axis range of each bead, the setting ‘auto-Z brightness correction’ was checked with laser power adjusted at 3 - 4 positions along the Z-axis. Final image is maximum intensity Z-projection with channels combined to form a composite image. Scale bar, 100 µm.


3rd Place

The Coccoid Entanglement

Choo Pei Yi (SCELSE)

Imaged here are strings of Enterococcus faecalis cells, incapable of separation due to a mutation in a cell wall hydrolase gene. Cells were pulsed sequentially in two different colored cell wall labelling fluorescent probes to distinguish between the old (red) and new (cyan) cell wall. Images were acquired using the Carl Zeiss ELYRA PS.1 and processed via Structured illumination microscopy (SIM) at 100x magnification. Scale bar: 2 μm



1st place | 2nd place | 3rd place

NOBIC Image Contest 2021

NOBIC has organised an image contest for users of NOBIC imaging facilities (AOBIP at LKCMedicine and ABIF at SCELSE). The contest was open for image submission during July 2021. We have received 29 images which were then anonymously evaluated by an international panel of judges comprising representatives from academia and industry:

In the first round, the judges selected 10 finalists and in the second round they selected 3 winners from among the finalists. We'd like to congratulate here to the winners and finalists and to express our thanks to the panel of judges. Last but not least, we'd like to thank all participants of the contest. There were more great images than there could be finalists. We hope many more equally fascinating images will be acquired at NOBIC Facilities and we are looking forward to helping you along the journey.

Prizes for the winners were contributed by LKCMedicine, SCELSE and sponsors of the contest:

For more details refer to the contest announcement (PDF).

Other Finalists (in alphabetical order of image titles):

Enraged Sprouts

Natalie Yeo, Ng Chun Yi and Christine Cheung (LKCMedicine)

Human endothelial cells sprouting from a cell-coated microcarrier bead within a fibrin matrix, stained for F-actin (red) and nuclei (cyan). These endothelial cell-coated beads were embedded within a ~2mm-thick fibrin gel in 8-well chambered slides. Image was acquired with an inverted laser scanning confocal microscope (LSM800, Carl Zeiss) using a Plan-Apochromat 20x/0.80 objective lens. Two-channel Z-stack images (AF568 and DAPI) of beads were captured using ZEN software (blue edition, Carl Zeiss) with 100 – 200 Z-slices were acquired for each bead. To correct for differences in signal intensity across the large Z-axis range of each bead, the setting ‘auto-Z brightness correction’ was checked with laser power adjusted at 3 - 4 positions along the Z-axis. Final image is a maximum intensity Z-projection with channels combined to form a composite image. Scale bar, 100 µm.


Hippocampus

Vibhavari Bansal (LKCMedicine)

Hippocampus from an Alzheimer's mouse model stained by immunohistochemistry for 3 cellular stains. Taken on Axio Scan.Z1 20x lens, single plane, 40 micron mounted section Scale bars: 650μm and 65μm for zoomed inset
Hoechst (Turquoise)
IBA1 (Green
GFAP (Orange)
MAP2 (Violet)

Intracranial vascular system in zebrafish embryo

Kaliya Perumal Arun Kumar and Philip Ingham (LKCMedicine)

Intracranial vascular system in a double transgenic reporter zebrafish embryo with GFP labelled endothelial cells and DsRed labelled blood cells


Living on the Edge

Choo Pei Yi (SCELSE)

Imaged here is the edge of a mixed species macrocolony biofilm (Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus) labelled with SYTO 9 (green) and propidium iodide (red). Dead S. aureus cells can be seen speckled across a sea of E. coli cells. Image was acquired on the Carl Zeiss Axio Observer Z1 at 100x magnification. Scale bar: 5 μm


The Colorful Jurong Sludge

Wong Lan Li (SCELSE)

The special filamentous microbial species taking up fluorescently active nanoplastic (50um) that is neither the general filamentous chloroflexi (magenta) nor the eubacteria (blue)


United, we will divide

Chengxun Su (LKCMedicine)

When a cell undergoes mitosis, the chromatin condensates to chromosomes while most of the Ki-67 protein relocate to the surface of the chromosomes. Here we observe this phenomenon in a human aortic endothelial cell (center) through visualization of F-actin (red), nuclei (blue), and Ki-67 (green). This well-orchestrated process is the genesis of dividing cells.
Imaging details:
1. The microscope and objective lens used: inverted Confocal Airyscan Microscope with live imaging capabilities (LSM800), 40x objective lens with oil immersion
2. Imaging modality: snapshot
3. Imaged area dimensions: 203 micron x 203 micron
4. Type of sample: fixed cells
5. Main image processing steps: converted czi to tiff using Zen


Yin and Yang of the length axis

Harsha Mahabaleshwar (LKCMedicine)

Two-day-old zebrafish embryos mounted side by side and imaged on Zeiss LSM800 – Axio Imager.Z2, using 10x Plan-Neofluar objective, 488 nm and 561 nm lasers, and multiple tile function. Images were stitched together using ZEN 2.3 and further processed using the maximum intensity projection, background subtraction and brightness-contrast functions on Fiji/ImageJ to highlight the details. The right Tg(ET37:Egfp, 7xTCFXla.Siam:nlsmCherry) embryo shows the enrichment of red WNT signaling in the posterior regions of the trunk. In contrast, the left Tg(ET37:Egfp, BMPRE-AAV.Mlp:mKOFP2) embryo shows the enrichment of red BMP signaling in the anterior regions of the trunk. The two morphogen signaling pathways both depicted in red, are active at the two opposite ends of the trunk axis.




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