A dentistry postgraduate student from Queen Mary University of London has won the 2018 Life Science Image awards with a photograph titled ‘Scalpel Close-up’.
Ioannis Papadopoulos, studying at Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry was the overall winner of the competition for his photograph entered into the ‘beauty in medicine’ category.
Mr Papadopoulos said: “The photograph of this scalpel blade, that is used every day in medicine and dentistry, illustrates that beauty is all around us, even with the most simple of things.
A detailed photograph can make almost anything look beautiful just by appreciating the lines and geometry of an object. Macro photography is a tool to explore a world that we interact with every day, but rarely take the time to observe.
I find it very inspiring to appreciate the details in the objects we use every day and that is why I took the picture.
I’m very happy about winning, the competition was of very high standard. It was a nice experience being a part of the awards, it was really impressive how so many different pictures came together.”
The Life Sciences Institute (LSI) is a multidisciplinary endeavour that promotes interdisciplinary research in the life sciences across our three Faculties: Humanities and Social Sciences, Medicine and Dentistry, and Science and Engineering.
The Life Science Image Awards are an opportunity for staff and students to present their artistic perspective on the world of life sciences. This year’s themes were: health and wellbeing, health and technology, and beauty in medicine.
Professor Bill Spence, Vice Principal (research) said: “Our Life Sciences researchers are doing wonderful work, ranging across all our disciplines. Understanding more about health at all these levels will improve people’s lives by finding better ways to promote wellbeing and prevent and treat disease.
“Research is also, importantly, simply about the wonder of exploration and discovery and there is no better way to illustrate this than by sharing some of the beautiful images shown in this competition.
Congratulations to all, and especially of course to the winner Ioannis Papadopoulos for ‘Scalpel Close-up’ – an image finely combining simplicity, composition and lighting.”
The winner of the people’s choice award was ‘Heart’ by Anna Monika Poliniewicz, postgraduate student at the School of Engineering and Materials Science. ‘Heart’ is an image of a membrane made from protein/peptide which has been developed in a lab. The picture was taken with the help of a scanning electron microscope.
Ms Poliniewicz said: “We are working with this membrane towards development of vascular grafts, replacing diseased blood vessels and re-directing the flow of blood into healthy blood vessels, for tissue engineering applications.”
Health & Wellbeing winner:
Keep Moving Forward, Vladislav Skovorodov
Health and Technology winner:
Taking the strain of the Heart through artificial intelligence, Kenneth Fung
Beauty in Medicine winner:
Paracetamol, David Mills
Commended:
The Heart of Our Vessels, Cristina Perez-Ternero, Health & Wellbeing
Riding the Exosome Shuttle, Fiona Lewis, Health & Technology
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