Gabe Luna
A couple of years ago I was working on a project that sought to develop semi-automated computational approaches for the analysis of complex large scale bio-imaging datasets, this year one image I generated for that project was selected as one of the 2017 Wellcome Image Award winners. The Wellcome organization is based out of the United Kingdom and celebrates science, medicine, and life. This work was made possible in part by working in the Retinal Cell Biology Lab in the Neuroscience Research Institute at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The image above is shows the neural retina, and was created with a laser scanning confocal microscope using fluorescently conjugated antibodies to identify different cellular structures within the tissue. Here, hundreds of high-resolution images were optically captured and then seamlessly assembled into one complete image to provide both a global overview of the sample while maintaining sufficient spatial resolution to examine local regions. The blue color reveals the extensive vascular network of the retina, the green colored structures reveal a type of cell called astrocytes (due to their star-like appearance), while the red color identifies their bodies through genetic manipulation.
The image above is a smaller region of the whole retina to provide a sense of spatial resolution. Many thanks to the Wellcome organization for the award, as well as for their outreach efforts regarding biomedical science.
Media coverage of the 2017 Wellcome Image Awards: