For the last 20 years, the Wellcome Image Awards have celebrated the most stunning photographs in the fields of science. No less captivating than last year’s selections, this year’s winners dazzle the imagination and visualize complex concepts.
Chosen by a panel of nine judges, this year’s winners range from a peek at the blood vessels of an African Grey Parrot to a visualization of Twitter dialogue about breast cancer. After the overall winner is announced on March 15th, the photos will appear in exhibitions in the United Kingdom, Europe, and Africa in an effort to make scientific study more accessible to a mainstream audience.
Take in the winners of the awards below. Cast a vote for the best image here for a chance to receive a print of the award-winning photo.
Developing spinal cord (Gabriel Galea, University College London)

Cat skin and blood supply (David Linstead)
Wellcome Images

Language pathways of the brain (Stephanie J Forkel and Ahmad Beyh, Natbrainlab, King’s College London; Alfonso de Lara Rubio, King’s College London)
Wellcome Images

Intraocular lens ‘iris clip’ (Mark Bartley, Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust)
Wellcome Images

Vessels of a healthy mini-pig eye (Peter M Maloca, OCTlab at the University of Basel and Moorfield
s Eye Hospital, London; Christian Schwaller; Ruslan Hlushchuk, University of Bern; Sébastien Barré)
Wellcome Images

Hawaiian bobtail squid (Mark R Smith, Macroscopic Solutions)

MicroRNA scaffold cancer therapy (João Conde, Nuria Oliva and Natalie Artzi, Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Wellcome Images

Surface of a mouse retina (Gabriel Luna, Neuroscience Research Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara)
Wellcome Images

Unravelled DNA in a human lung cell (Ezequiel Miron, University of Oxford)
Wellcome Images

#breastcancer Twitter connections (Eric Clarke, Richard Arnett and Jane Burns, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland)
Wellcome Images

Brain-on-a-chip (Collin Edington and Iris Lee, © Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Wellcome Images

Zebrafish eye and neuromasts (Ingrid Lekk and Steve Wilson, University College London)
Wellcome Images

The Placenta Rainbow (Suchita Nadkarni, William Harvey Research Institute, Queen Mary University of London)
Wellcome Images

Synthetic DNA channel transporting cargo across membranes (Michael Northrop)
Wellcome Images

Pigeon thermoregulation (Scott Echols, Scarlet Imaging and the Grey Parrot Anatomy Project)
Wellcome Images

Blood vessels of the African grey parrot (Scott Birch and Scott Echols )
Wellcome Images
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