The Wellcome Image Awards recognize science imaging talent and techniques and this year’s winners including some fascinating entries.
Scanning electron micrographs of a boll weevil and a greenfly’s eye, a clinical photograph of an elderly lady’s curved spine and a parasitoid wasp are just a few of the 20 winning images.
The winners were selected from all the images acquired by the Wellcome Images picture library in the past year, and are already accessible along with over 40,000 contemporary biomedical and clinical images.
Unlike other awards, the winning images, along with all content in the Wellcome Images collection, are available under Creative Commons license.

Distribution of metabolites in a mouse kidney, CMP – Jefferson R. Brown, Robert E. Marc, Bryan W. Jones, Glen Prusky & Nazia Alam
Adam Rutherford, who was one of the judges, spoke about the purpose of the awards:
“The breath-taking riches of the imagery that science generates are so important in telling stories about research and helping us to understand often abstract concepts. It’s not just about imaging the very small either, it’s about understanding life, death, sex and disease: the cornerstones of drama and art. Once again, the Wellcome Image Awards celebrate all of this and more with this year’s incredible range of winning images.”
Catherine Draycott, Head of Wellcome Images and a member of the judging panel added that “This year’s selection of winning images is not only beautiful; they bring to life an incredible array of innovative imaging techniques, and hint at stories and ideas that go beyond the visual.”
Submissions for the 2016 awards are open, but only photos that are accepted into one of Wellcome’s collections can participate.
The 2015 winning gallery will be uploaded next week but until then you can have a look at the 2014 winners.
The overall winner will be announced on March 18 2015.

Purkinje cell and dendritic tree, rat cerebellar cortex, SEM – Prof. M. Hausser, Sarah Rieubland &
Arnd Roth, UCL

An elderly lady with Kyphosis (curvature of the spine) – Mark Bartley, Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Full paediatric sensory unit – Geraldine Thompson, Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Drug-releasing depots in mouse lungs – Gregory Szeto, Adelaide Tovar, Jeffrey Wyckoff, Koch Institute, copyright MIT

Nervous system in a fruit fly larva, serial section TEM – Albert Cardona, HHMI Janelia Research Campus

Brain astrocyte cell taking up carbon nano-needles, SEM – Khuloud T. Al-Jamal, Serene Tay & Michael Cicirko
All images are courtesy Wellcome Images.
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