Below are the top 4 prize winners of the Iowa Art in Science competition. Congratulations all! They will have their images featured in the 2024 CMRF calendar and receive prizes donated by Nikon and Zeiss. Click on the their names to see the images:

1st Place:  Weam Shahin(link is external)  “I was looking for ionocytes, a rare cell that was first described in fish gill, in ALI cultures of airway stem cells when I found a whole fish.” Weam will receive binoculars donated by Nikon.

2nd Place: Wen Wen(link is external) "Somewhere over the rainbow" Immunofluorescent image of the adult zebrafish retina section labeled for rod and cone photoreceptors, retinal bipolar cells, and cell nuclei. Wen will receive binoculars donated by Zeiss.

3rd Place: Kaitlen Yarrington(link is external) "Mixed cultures of motile P. aeruginosa (cyan) and nonmotile P. aeruginosa (magenta) in competition with S. aureus (yellow). While the motile P. aeruginosa species can sense S. aureus secreted factors and moves towards them for competition, the nonmotile P. aeruginosa species instead isolates S. aureus by forming its own microcolony around S. aureus cells. Imaged with fluorescence microscopy." Kaitlen will receive a gift box from Nikon.

4th Place: Michelle Giedt(link is external) "It is a zoom in on a nurse cell from a Drosophila follicle. Actin is in yellow, the nuclear envelope is magenta, and the nucleus is blue." Michelle wil also receive a gift box from Nikon.

Congratulations to the winners, and to all who submitted images. Thank you!! You will see most of them in the 2024 CMRF calendar.

The goal of The Iowa Art in Science Contest is to recognize the combination of outstanding scientific discovery and artistic appeal inherent to microscopy research.