2022 Winners

• 1st Prize: Dr. Ioannis Alexopoulos, ILH/CIGL Multiscale Imaging Platform, Justus Liebig University Giessen, Germany
• 2nd Prize: Blake Hernandez (PhD Student), Plachta Lab, Dept. of CDB, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, USA
• 3rd Prize: Maaike Lambers (PhD Student), Kops group, Oncode Institute, Hubrecht Institute-KNAW, The Netherlands
• 4th Prize: Dr. Rolando Berlinguer Palmini, BioImaging Unit, Newcastle University, UK
• 5th Prize: Dr. Christian Jüngst, Imaging facility, CECAD Research Center, University of Cologne, Germany

1st Prize Winner

Image from Ioannis Alexopoulos

Movie of a 2-Photon tile scan of 40-days-old lung organoid, co-cultured with endothelial cells (green). The blue colour represents the DAPI nuclear marker and the orange the beta-Catenin. Sample prepared by Anna-Lena Ament and Ana Ivonne Vazquez-Armendariz, PhD / AG Herold. This image was acquired with a 25x water/1.0NA objective at a 2-photon excitation of 1045nm. Upon stitching, the final volume was deconvolved with the Huygens Essential software and rendered with Huygens SFP Renderer. Image acquired and post-processed by Dr. Ioannis Alexopoulos.

2nd Prize Winner

Image from Blake Hernandez

Maximum intensity projection of Huygens deconvolved Leica SP8 confocal image of pre-implantation mouse embryo showing actin (orange), microtubules (gray), and chromosomes (cyan).

3rd Prize Winner

Image from Maaike Lambers

Kinetochores and microtubules engage in various interactions during mitosis. When treated with a low drug concentration, their shapes resemble coral. This cell was imaged using expansion microscopy on a Zeiss LSM900 with AiryScan 2, and was then deconvolved using Huygens. Shown is a MIP rendering of the final data.

4th Prize Winner

Image from Rolando Berlinguer Palmini

Quote:"Technically challenging 2 colour STED large volume of a HeLa cell in anaphase stained for Tubulin (red), TOM20 (green - mitochondria) and DNA (DAPI – Blue – Confocal). One of the main problem with STED is bleaching and sometimes the fluorophores are damaged even at the first optical slice. The more dyes and optical channels, the more difficult to avoid bleaching. Here we managed to get 72(!) optical slices for a total Z depth of 12.09 um. We used the not-setting “Slowfade glass” mounting media to preserve the 3D shape. Within the SFP volume rendered image I noticed how beautiful the chromosome were rendered. They looked fluffy and ethereal still they contain the code of life. The mitochondria are scientifically and educationally very interesting because of the distribution around the nucleus during this high energy demanding phase. Tubulin is encasing the chromosomes."

5th Prize Winner

Image from Christian Jüngst

Superresolution STED image of mitochondrial cristae labelled with PKMO. Huygens was used for deconvolution of the image.

2021 Winners

• 1st Prize: Dr. Rolando Berlinguer Palmini (BioImaging Unit) and Dr. Christin Albus (Mitochondria Research Group), Newcastle University, UK
• 2nd Prize: Dr. Claudio Retamal, CEBICEM, Facultad de Medicina y Ciencia, Universidad San Sebastian, Santiago, Chile
• 3rd Prize: Dr. Grazvydas Lukinavicius, MPI for Biophysical Chemistry - Department of NanoBiophotonics, Max Planck Institute, Germany.
• 4th Prize: Dr, Alberto Moreno Cencerrado (Institute of Molecular Pathology) and Gabriele Bradamante (Gregor Mendel Institute)) and , Austria
• 5th Prize: Dr. Daniela Malide NHLBI Light microscopy core facility, NIH Bethesda, USA

1st Prize Winner

Image from Rolando Berlinguer Palmini and Christin Albus

"Christmas Lights & Christmas Tree" - Challenging 4 colour STED 3D stack combined with RNA FISH! Leica STED image was deconvolved and visualized with Huygens Professional! U2OS cells with mitochondrial outer membrane Tom20 (AF488 - White), ND1 mRNA FISH Quasar 570 ND1 NADH dehydrogenase subunit 1 (Green), ND2 mRNA FISH CalFluor 610 NADH dehydrogenase 2 (ND2) protein (Red), mitochondrial RNA-binding protein GRSF1 (RNA granule) - Abberior star red (Blue). Tom20 is MIP rendered (white) and other channels are surface rendered with Huygens.

2nd Prize Winner

Image from Claudio Retamal

HeLa cell treated with a PKA inhibitor, stained for EGFR (red) Transferrin (green) Rab11 (blue) and DAPI (light cyan). This image, acquired with a Leica SP8 CLSM, was deconvolved, chromatic aberration corrected and 3D surface rendered with the Huygens Software. Image published as the October issue cover of Traffic Journal.

3rd Prize Winner

Image from Grazvydas Lukinavicius

Large FOV of living U-2 OS cells stained with mitochondria (red-hot), tubulin (cyan) and actin (grey) probes. This confocal tile scan was acquired on the Abberior Facility Line, and was deconvolved and stitched using Huygens Essential.

4th Prize Winner

Image Gabriele Bradamante and Alberto Moreno Cencerrado

Virus-infected Arabidopsis flower bud - 3D MIP rendering. Violet: TuMV-6K2-Scarlet. Green: pUb::H2B-Clover. A set of eight images, each acquired from a different angle with a Zeiss Lightsheet Z.1 using a 10X water objective, were deconvolved, fused and visualized using Huygens Professional.

5th Prize Winner

Image from Daniela Malide

Mitochondria in COS7 cells stained for Tom20 were imaged as a tile-z-stack with a Leica SP8 STED 3X. The image was deconvolved, surface-rendered, and segmented in Huygens (numbers label individual objects in Huygens Object Analyzer).

2020 Winners

• 1st Prize: Dr. Juraj Kabat, Dr. Olena Kamenyeva, and Dr. Steven Brooks, NIAID/NIH, Bethesda, USA
• 2nd Prize: Dr. Barbora Kabatova, Dr. Juraj Kabat and Dr Bo Liang, NIAID/NIH, Bethesda, USA
• 3rd Prize: Dr. Rolando Berlinguer Palmini (BioImaging Unit) and Dr. Matthew Zorkau (Mitochondria Research Group), Newcastle University
• 4th Prize: Dr. Zhiye Lu, Dr. Daniela Malide, Dr. Xuefei Ma, NHLBI Light microscopy core facility, NIH Bethesda, USA
• 5th Prize: Dr. Olena Kamenyeva and Dr. Juraj Kabat, Dr. Simon Wabitsch and Dr. Tim Greten, NIAID/NIH Bethesda, USA

1st Prize Winner

Image from Juraj Kabat, Olena Kamenyeva and Steven Brooks

High quality and SFP rendered multiphoton image of Alpha Globin in human arteries. Fluorescent reporters: Red, collagen (SHG); Green, elastin; Blue, Alpha Globin. This 3D stack was acquired on a Leica SP8 DIVE using a 25x objective. Huygens Professional was used to align the data with the Object Stabilizer, and to deconvolve and 3D-visualize the image with the SFP Volume Renderer.

2nd Prize Winner

Image from Barbora Kabatova, Juraj Kabat and Bo Liang

Cell infected with human respiratory syncytial virus with Green Fluorescent Protein (RSV-GFP in green) within a culture of differentiated mucociliary Human airway epithelial cells. Cells were fixed and stained with DAPI to visualize nuclei (in blue), and antibodies against β-tublin for cilia (in red) and against the chemokine receptor CX3CR1 (in yellow). This 3D Leica SP8 confocal (40x) image was aligned using Huygens Object Stabilizer, crosstalk reduced using Huygens Crosstalk Corrector, deconvolved in Huygens Professional, and visualized with Huygens MIP Renderer.

3rd Prize Winner

Image from Rolando Berlinguer Palmini and Matthew Zorkau

This has proven to be a crucial image to show the submitochondrial location of newly synthesised proteins. The green rendered fluorescent signal represents newly synthesised mitochondrial protein and the red is an immunofluorescent antibody to a mitochondrial protein found in the inner boundary membrane of the mitochondrion (TIM23). This Huygens deconvolved image visualized with Huygens Surface Renderer shows a section of the human mitochondrial network taken at STED nanoscopy resolution using AF594 depleted with a 775nm STED laser and AF532 depleted with a 660nm STED laser.

4th Prize Winner

Image from Zhiye Lu, Daniela Malide and Xuefei Ma

3D maximum intensity projection of the nervous system of a iDISCO-cleared mouse embryo imaged on a Zeiss 880 confocal and stitched. The image was rendered using Huygens Maximum Intensity Projection (MIP) renderer with depth-coded coloring in Z.

5th Prize Winner

Movie from Olena Kamenyeva, Juraj Kabat, Simon Wabitsch and Tim Greten

CXCR6-GFP reporter cells (green) attack cancer (red) after arriving from blood vessels in mouse liver (blue and purple). Intravital microscopy with a Leica DIVE microscope was used to acquire and stitch 8 tile images (total tissue depth of 40 μm). Post-acquisition processing involved correction of artificial motion (transmitted heartbeat), image stabilization, and deconvolution using Huygens Professional software.

2019 Winners

• 1st Prize: Howard Vindin, PhD candidate, Weiss Lab, Charles Perkins Centre, The University of Sydney, NSW, Australia
• 2nd Prize: Dr. Marta Cortes Canteli, Miguel Servet Research Fellow, Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares Carlos III, Spain.
• 3rd Prize: Mrs. Karin Panser, Pauli Group, Institute of Molecular Pathology, Austria.
• 4th Prize: Dr. Grazvydas Lukinavicius, MPI for Biophysical Chemistry - Department of NanoBiophotonics, Max Planck Institute, Germany.
• 5th Prize: Dr. Ioannis Alexopoulos (General Instrumentation), sample provided by Dr. Ivo Rieu & Prof. Dr. Jian Xu and prepared by Mieke Wolters (Molecular Plant Physiology), Faculty of Science, Radboud University, Netherlands.

1st Prize Winner

Image from Howard Vindin

This single channel 350GB image shows Erythrocytes that mark the developing vasculature in a mouse embryo (E14.5). The 8x11x2mm specimen was imaged on a multiphoton microscope excited at 790nm using a 25x 1.0NA Objective. Subsequently, the image was stitched, deconvolved with Huygens Professional using a measured PSF, and visualised with depth-coded colouring using the Huygens MIP renderer (version 19.10). Howard's instagram account (#artofmicroscopy) shows many great images and nearly all of them have been processed with the help of Huygens .

2nd Prize Winner

Image from Marta Cortes Canteli

This Huygens deconvolved image shows hypertrophic and reactive astrocytes (GFAP-green) present in the brain parenchyma of transgenic Alzheimer’s disease mice. The confocal z-stack was acquired according to Nyquist criteria using a HC PL APO 93X/1.30 GLYC motCORR objective of a Leica TCS SP8 Confocal-gSTED 3D System. The data was deconvolved with Huygens Professional. Finally, a 3D surface was obtained using the SFP Volume Renderer of Huygens Professional Software. Isosurface of the green channel was applied as indicated.

3rd Prize Winner

Image from Karin Panser

This Huygens deconvolved image shows an optical section through somites of a 2-day old zebrafish tail, stained for actin (phalloidin, shown in orange-gold) and nuclei (DAPI, shown in blue). The image was acquired on a Zeiss LSM700 confocal (40x, 1.3 NA) and deconvolved with Huygens Professional.

4th Prize Winner

Image from Grazvydas Lukinavicius

This Huygens deconvolved image shows a IsoSTED image of tubulin labelled with a small molecule probe, and imaged on an Abberior STED expert line microscope. Confocal and 3D STED images were deconvolved using Huygens software. Movie generated using Huygens MIP renderer.

5th Prize Winner

Image from Ioannis Alexopoulos

Multiview light sheet data (3 angles: -135deg, 45deg, 135 degrees) was fused and deconvolved with Huygens FUSER, and shows Arabidopsis thaliana mature anther with pollen grains, stained with Alexander's staining protocol. Multiview images were taken with an Olympus/PhaseView Alpha3 Light Sheet system. Image was visualized with the Huygens MIP Renderer using depth-code colouring.

2018 Winners

• 1st Prize: Dr. Outi Paloheimo. Tampere Imaging Facility, University of Tampere, Finland. Special thanks to the Heart Group, Faculty of Medicine and Health Technology, University of Tampere for providing the cells.
• 2nd Prize: Dr. Howard Vindin, Cell Biology Group, The Woolcock Institute of Medical Research, The University of Sydney, Australia. Special thanks also to Sydney Microscopy and Microanalysis, ACMM, University of Sydney.
• 3th Prize: Dr. Grazvydas Lukinavicius, Department of Nanobiophotonics, Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Germany.

1st Prize Winner

Image from Outi Paloheimo

This Huygens deconvolved confocal image shows Human induced pluripotent stem cell derived cardiomyocytes (heart cells) with filamentous actin in red, and nuclei in gray. The image was acquired with a Zeiss LSM780 microscope with a 63x/1.40 oil immersion objective, 561 nm and 405 nm laser lines. Scaling X, Y 0.047 µm, scaling Z 0.150 µm (z range 8.40 µm). Image size 192x192 µm (xy). Deconvolution was performed with Huygens Essential (18.04) using a theoretical PSF and the CMLE algorithm.

2nd Prize Winner

Movie submitted by Howard Vindin

Autofluorescence of thick elastic fibers (red) and SHG signal (collagen, green) in part of the Pulmonary pleurae from a human lung. The image was acquired on a Leica SP8 two photon microscope (63x 1.4NA), deconvolved with Huygens Professional and visualized using the Huygens SFP renderer. Stack dimensions are 84x84x18 μm. {DIV}

3rd Prize

Image from Grazvydas Lukinavicius

Huygens deconvolved image of fruit fly tissue stained with Tubulin probe (magenta) and tracheole (yellow). This high resolution and quality image was acquired using a STED 775 QUAD scanning microscope (Abberior Instruments GmbH).

2017 Winners

• 1st Prize: Dr. Romain Guiet, BioImaging & Optics Platform – EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland
• 1st Prize: Dr. Dimitris Kapsokalyvas, Department of Molecular Cell Biology, Maastricht University,The Netherlands
• 3rd Prize: Dr. Tagide DeCarvalho, Department of Biological Sciencess, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, USA.
• 4th Prize: Dr. Gokhan Yilmaz, Department of Pharmacology, University of Oxford, UK.
• 5th Prize: Dr. Motosuke Tsutsumi, Nikon Imaging Center at Hokkaido University, Japan

1st Prize Winner

Image from Romain Guiet

Hela cell stained for DNA (Azure), F-Actin (Spring Green), Mitochondria (Amber) and Tubulin (Bright Pink). Confocal images were taken with a Zeiss LSM710 microscope and deconvolved with Huygens software.

1st Prize Winner

Image submitted by Dimitris Kapsokalyvas

SHG signal of the rat soleous muscle's myosin imaged with a Leica two-photon microscope (NA: 1, 20x). Stack has been deconvolved with Huygens using a measured PSF, and visualized with the Huygens SFP Renderer. High quality imaging together with Huygens allows you to see through the muscle's A bands from one side to the other. The stack dimensions is 105x105x87 μm.

3rd Prize

Image in the category "Tissue and Organisms", from Tagide DeCarvalho

This image of a cyanobacteria mat/biofilm, which is stained with acridine orange, shows much color that is mostly due to autofluorescence. This aesthetic image was acquired on a Leica confocal, and deconvolved and MIP rendered with Huygens. It could well have been a product of modern art.

4th Prize

Image submitted by Gokhan Yilmaz

This colorful picture is a high-resolution image of Niemann-Pick Disease Type C (NPC) cells taken with a Leica STED using 100% 775 STED depletion. It shows after deconvolution with Huygens much detail and striking weak filopodia formation in the NPC cells.

5th Prize

Movie submitted by Motosuke Tsutsumi

2016 Winners

• 1st Prize: Dr. Daniela Malide, Light Microscopy Core Facility of the NIH - National Heart, Blood and Lung Institute, Bethesda, USA.
• 1st Prize: Mrs. Outi Paloheimo from the Neuro Group BioMediTech, and Imaging Facility, University of Tampere, Finland.
• 3rd Prize: Dr. Priyam Banerjee, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas, USA.
• 4th Prize: Mrs. Julia Sauerwald, Group of Prof. Stefan Luschnig, Institute for Neurobiology, WWU Muenster, Germany.
• 5th Prize: Dr. Eva Wegel, JIC BioImaging, John Innes Centre, Norwich, United Kingdom.

1st Prize Winners

Image in the category "Cells", from Daniela Malide

COS-7 (fibroblast-like) cell line with mitochondria in green/white and cytoskeletal protein tubulin in red/magenta. Comparing the diffraction limited confocal image (green/red) with the super-resolution STED (Stimulated Emission Depletion) microscopy image (white/magenta). STED reveals thin tubulin strands (magenta) and details of the TOM-20 stained outer mitochondria membrane (white). Images were taken with a Leica SP8 STED 3X microscope and deconvolved with Huygens software.

Image in the category "Tissue and Organisms", from Outi Paloheimo

The image represents a portion of the wing (showing arrangement of scales) of Pieris brassicae (cabbage butterfly). A Zeiss LSM 780 confocal microscope (25x/0.8 objective) with excitation lasers 488 nm, 535 nm, 633 nm was used to image the autofluorescence. The image was deconvolved using Huygens Essential (CMLE and theoretical PSF).

3rd Prize

Image submitted by Priyam Banerjee

Human lung adenocarcinoma tissue with the extracellular matrix protein Collagen I immunostained in red (Alexa Fluor 568), collagen modifying enzyme Lysine Hydroxylase II (LH2) immunostained in green (Alexa Fluor 488). Nuclei were counterstained in blue (DAPI). Image was acquired with a Nikon A1+ confocal using Plan Apo 10X 0.45 NA objective. The image was deconvolved and SFP rendered with Huygens Professional version 16.10

4th Prize

Image submitted by Julia Sauerwald

The image shows a Drosophila thorax captured with a Zeiss 880 confocal microscope and deconvolved using Huygens Essential. Respiratory tracheal branches are labeled in various colors using stochastic expression of spaghetti monster GFP with different epitope tags.

5th Prize

Image submitted by Eva Wegel

The image is a maximum intensity projection (MIP) of a z-stack through a Drosophila macrophage imaged on a Leica TCS SP8X scanning confocal microscope. Objective NA 1.4. Pinhole size 405nm 0.17 AU, 488nm 0.15 AU, 568nm 0.15 AU for obtaining the best possible resolution. Nuclei are DAPI stained (cyan), alpha-tubulin was detected with a primary mouse DM1A antibody and a secondary anti-mouse antibody coupled to Alexa Fluor 488 (magenta), actin was labelled with phalloidin coupled to Alexa Fluor 568 (green). Deconvolution was done with CMLE using Huygens Essential default settings.

2015 Winners

• 1st Prize: Dr. Pawel Pasierbek, BioOptics Facility of the IMP-IMBA-GMI, Vienna, Austria
• 2nd Prize: Dr. Matyas Molnar, BioVis Facility, Uppsala University, Sweden
• 3rd Prize: Dr. Helfrid Hochegger, Genome and Stability Centre, University of Sussex, UK
• 4th Prize: Dr. Arndt Meyer, Animal Navigation Group, University of Oldenburg, Germany
• 5th Prize: Dr. Jorge Bernardino de la Serna, Science and Technology Facilities, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, UK
• 6th Prize: Dr. Jing Yan, Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, USA

1st Prize

Image from Pawel Pasierbek, BioOptics (IMP, IMBA, GMI), Vienna, Austria.

Spinning disk confocal image of tissue culture neiurons deconvolved with Huygens professional.

2nd Prize

Image from Matyas Molnar from the BioVis imaging facility, Uppsala University, Sweden.

''Ant head autofluorescence captured with a Zeiss 710 confocal microscope using 488nm laser excitation and detection of two channes (blue and green). The acquired 3D dataset was deconvolved and maximum intensity projection image was rendered with Huygens. }

3rd Prize

Image submitted by Helfrid Hochegger, Genome and Stability Centre, Sussex Universty, UK.

The image shows glioma stem cells grown on matrigel and stained by IF with tubulin (green, actin (red), centromeres/CREST (white) and DAPI (blue). The image was taken on an Olympus IX73 using a 40x 0.9NA. }

4th Prize

Image submitted by Arndt Meyer, Animal Navigation Group, University of Oldenburg, Germany.

Calbindin immunoreactivity in the ganglion cell layer of a mouse retina. The image was taken close to the center of the retina, where the ganglion cell axons gather in thick bundles and then leave the eye as the optic nerve. This confocal stack was recorded on a Leica SP8 microscope, deconvolved using Huygens Essential, and finally color-coded for depth.

5th Prize

Image submitted by Jorge Bernardino Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, UK.

Image of a T lymphocyte crawling taken with a Leica SP8 g-STED. The image is deconvolved with Huygens and the final visual effect was obtained using the Huygens surface rendering tool. Blue shows labelled plasma membrane with a specific lipophilic dye, red represents the actin filaments, and yellow internal cytosolic vesicles.

6th Prize

Image submitted by Jing Yan, Princeton University, USA.

Image shows a growing community of bacteria Vibrio cholerae, the pathogen for cholerae. Bacteria adopt a social life form known as biofilm, where they stay together and secrete chemicals to build a "home" for survival. This Nikon spinning disc confocal image was deconvolved with a theoretical PSF in Huygens and finally color coded for depth.

2014 Winners

1st Prize

Image from Imre Gaspar of the EMBL Heidelberg using the Leica SP8 and Huygens Remote Manager/Core at the Advanced Light Microscopy Facility, Germany.

The image represents a Z-stack of 116 sections showing a series of developing Drosophila oocytes with actin in yellow (Phalloidin) and the nuclear envelope of the nurse cells in green (GFP-Tm1).

2nd Prize

Seema S. Lakdawala and Juraj Kabat of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID), NIH, Bethesda, USA: This Leica SP5 confocal image was deconvolved with Huygens.

The image visualizes a MDCK cell that was infected with influenza A H1N1 virus and stained with fluorescent probes targeting 4 distinct influenza viral RNA segments, PB2 (red), PB1 (green), PA (orange), and NP (yellow). The nucleus is labeled in blue based on DAPI staining.

3rd Prize

Leica SP8 confocal image from Yury Belyaev of the ALMF-EMBL Heidelberg (Germany). The image was found and selected using Huygens Titan, and deconvolved and visualized with Huygens Remote Manager and Core.

The image was acquired with a Leica SP8 confocal with a water objective (NA 1.1) and represents a fish eye with membrane in green and nuclei in red.

2013 Winners

1st Prize

Image from Karin Panser from the laboratory of Dr. Andrew Straw, Institute of Molecular Pathology (I.M.P.), Vienna, Austria.

The image represents fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster) ommatidia, which are arranged in an extremely regular array in the compound eye. Nuclei are shown in blue (DAPI), cadherin in red, and chaoptin in the photoreceptors in green. This Zeiss LSM780 confocal (NA 1.3, 40x) image was deconvolved with Huygens Professional.

2nd Prize

Dr. Ulrike Engel, Nikon Imaging Center, BioQuant Institute, Heidelberg, Germany

Huygens deconvolved and MIP rendered confocal image (Nikon; NA 0.45) of a tadpole intestine with nuclei in orange and muscle actin in cyan. The direction of the gut looping can be used as a readout for proper asymmetric organ development. Looping in the other direction is a sign of perturbed Nodal/Notch signaling.

3rd Prize

Matthew Mitschelen from the Reynolds Oklahoma Center on Aging, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, USA

Huygens deconvolved and MIP rendered epifluorescence Z stack of part of a mouse brain. The image shows aquaporin 4 (red) as individual astrocytic end-feet along a blood vessel. Thanks to deconvolution, GFAP (green) can be colocalized with AQ4 in small areas, but the end-feet and arms of astrocytes can be identified as distinguishable structures in terms of protein expression.

2012 Winners

1st Prize

Ms. Thuraya Awadová and Mr. Martin Šodek, Veterinary research institute, CEITEC, Czech Republic

2nd Prize

Dr. Thomas Ruckelshausen and Dr. Henrike Peuschel, Leibniz Institute of New Materials, Germany

3rd Prize

Dr. Claudia Florindo, Dr. Marco A. Campinho, and Javier Padilla, University of Algarve, Portugal