Microscopic Zebrafish embryo is star of global film awards

Taken by Dr Eduardo E Zattara of Argentina’s National Scientific and Technical Research Council, the footage depicts the eight hour migration of neural crest cells, using time lapse imaging to show the progress in just seconds.

Speaking about his work, Zattara explained: “This recording came out very clean and required almost no post-processing. It is an astonishing display of the dynamics of neural crest cell migration.

“The result was a video that was both biologically informative and visually striking. It was by far my favourite microscopy video to render.”

Zattara won in a highly competitive field of entrants that resulted in 25 submissions receiving honourable mentions and four other finalists.

Second place went to French entrant Dr. Christophe Leterrier of the NeuroCyto Lab for his 12-hour time-lapse of cultured monkey cells labelled for plasma membrane and DNA.

Third was Dr. Ahmet Karabulut of the USA’s Stowers Institute for Medical ResearchGibson Lab for a film of sea anemone neurons and stinging cells showing their dynamic processes.

Another US-based entrant Dr. Dylan T. Burnette of Vanderbilt University School of Medicine

Department of Cell and Developmental Biology came fourth with his video of dying melanoma cells. 

In fifth place were the University of Barcelona’s Ignasi Vélez-Ceron, Dr. Jordi Ignés & Dr. Francesc Sagués with their entry, showing a photosensitive active nematic layer confined in an annular channel 

Now in its 12^th year, the international Nikon Small World in Motion Competition began in 2011 as a film category of the Nikon Small World Photomicrography Competition, itself founded in 1975. The four competition judges including leading scientists and photojournalists.

See the winning entry, courtesy of Nikon Small World in Motion, below. Video excerpts of the other finalists and commended entries will be publihed later