Wellcome Image Awards

Red blood cells
A carpet of red blood cells clearly showing their typical biconcave disc shape. This highly flexible shape provides a large surface area for absorption and release of oxygen and carbon dioxide, and allows the cells to move easily through the finest of capillaries. Colour-enhanced scanning electron micrograph by Dave McCarthy and Annie Cavanagh.

Prostate cancer cells
A clump of prostate cancer cells. The bluey-green cells are actively growing, whereas the pink ones are in the process of dying by programmed cell death (apoptosis). Many factors are involved in the development of cancers, most of which ultimately have an effect on different sets of genes within the cell. Some of these genes control growth and others programmed cell death. When a group of cells have mutations that tell them to divide faster than they are told to die, cancer can result. Colour-enhanced scanning electron micrograph by Dave McCarthy and Annie Cavanagh.

Mid-gestation mouse embryo
The new technique of Optical Projection Tomography (OPT) helps to reveal the internal structures of stained whole embryos and small pieces of tissue without the need for cutting sections. The mouse embryo shown here has been stained to show parts of the nervous system in green, the floor of the spinal cord and other tissue in blue and the heart in red. Unstained tissue appears grey. The OPT technique enables different elements of the staining patterns to be revealed in more detail using the computer to selectively remove overlying tissue. This process can be observed in the accompanying on-screen animation.
Optical Projection Tomography image by James Sharpe.

HIV
Internal structure of an HIV particle. The clarity of this image comes from the technique of cryo-electron tomography, where many images of slices through a virus particle are put together by computer to reconstruct the whole particle. The structures revealed are the conical red capsid, made up of a single type of viral protein. It encloses the viral RNA along with the reverse transcriptase enzyme, which copies the virus's RNA genome into DNA. The membrane that encapsulates the virus is shown in blue. Viruses can only reproduce if they are inside another cell, known as the host cell. The yellow area between the core and the membrane of the virus is called the lateral body; it includes proteases and probably remnants of material from that host cell. Cryo-electron tomography image by Stephen Fuller.

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