Researchers win first prize at international Nikon International Small World Photography Contest

"The Nikon Small World Contest is an intersection between a science competition and an art competition," he says. "This does not judge things solely on aesthetic value or scientific merit, it is images that we take for our research project which turns out to be simply beautiful, in our opinion . "

The judges of the Nikon competition have accepted, awarding He and Haynes the first prize in the video category of the contest, which is now in its eighth year. The clip shows tendrils of branching neurons migrating through the zebrafish embryo as it grows. The video was created from images taken every minute over a period of 16 hours using a built-in light sheet microscope.

He works in Morgridge in the laboratory of Jan Huisken, a pioneer of light microscopy and guest professor of integrative biology at UW-Madison, and brings his expertise in imaging. Haynes is the team's biologist, working in the laboratory of Mary Halloran, neuroscientist at the University of Madison. The collaboration began when the Halloran laboratory was looking for ways to imagine the neurological development of the zebrafish more dynamically, capturing all the details and subtleties of development over time.

The technology of the luminous leaves provides an image resolution similar to the competing techniques such as confocal microscopy, but the light sheet is faster while being softer on the living sample, allowing for more light. 39, images and more healthy samples.

"Previously, we performed single-cell imaging, and with the optical plate we could achieve greater speed, as well as the ability to see the whole embryo at a time," says Haynes. "My point of view on zebrafish was previously the growth of individual neurons, and seeing them grow together on the whole embryo has really added another dimension to what we are studying in neurodevelopment."

Haynes' work at Halloran Lab aims to understand how axons navigate throughout the embryo area to find their targets and reach a specific end point. The axons of an embryo often travel very long distances, up to 10,000 times the length of their cell body, to reach their targets and perform their functions. Shining light on how they achieve their goal and the molecular actors who guide them can inform understanding of developmental biology.

"It is very easy to marvel at the quality of the images, but the scientific part requires more rigor than beautiful images," he says. "We have to repeat several times to check over and over again that what we see is a legitimate phenomenon, not an artifact of montage or image formation."

The next step towards which Haynes and He are working is to develop a half-rate system to image more specimens at a time. The microscope is currently the neck of the throat; Although Haynes can obtain many embryos at a time, the current system still allows imaging only one embryo at a time. The goal is to build a system capable of representing up to 25 embryos at a time.

Haynes and He are eager to continue the collaboration.

"I think it's the best collaboration I've ever attended," Haynes said. "Intellectual ideas really fill me, because Henry really knows what's new and innovative in his field.It's not as common for someone to be in this intermediate space where they are really interested in microscopy and the development of techniques, as well as in biology. "

"Thanks to this collaboration, we are learning a lot from one to the other," he said. "I'm teaching more optics and photophysics to Liz, while she's learning more about the biology behind the project we're working on. It's great to have a knowledgeable and dedicated collaborator on whom you can rely. "

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