One of the highlights of this year’s Photons, Electrons, and Sausages – User Meeting and BBQ 2026 (read more here) was the announcement of the winners of the Prague Node Picture of the Year 2026 competition, sponsored by Nikon.
The competition celebrates outstanding microscopy images created by users of the Euro-BioImaging Prague Node, showcasing both scientific excellence and the beauty of the microscopic world.
Winners
🥇 1st place: The Maw of the Sciaphilla by Tomáš Figura
Institution: Faculty of Science, CUNI
Taken at: CUNI VMCF
The image reveals the flower’s delicate reproductive structures, with blue tepals surrounding red stamens bearing violet pollen. Three germinating pollen grains are visible in dark violet, capturing the early stages of fertilisation. Instrument/software: JEOL JSM-IT200 Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), Adobe Photoshop.
🥈 2nd place: Sea Giant at Large by Martina Vinopalová
Institution: Faculty of Science, CUNI
Taken at: CUNI IMCF BIOCEV
🥉 3rd place: Fragile flowers by Štěpánka Martišková
Institution: Faculty of Science, CUNI
Taken at: CUNI VMCF
Martina presents an expansion microscopy image of a marine ciliate collected from the seashore of Uruguay. The image highlights the organism’s cilia (orange, acetylated tubulin) responsible for locomotion, together with the characteristic alveolar plates (cyan, NHS ester) that form part of its cell cortex. Instrument/software: Nikon CSU-W1, Huygens, Fiji, Imaris.
Štěpánka’s image showcases growth cones of differentiated SH-SY5Y neuronal cells. The image visualises the dynamic structures at the tips of growing neurites, where microtubules (green) and actin filaments (magenta) coordinate cell movement and axon guidance during neuronal development. Instrument/software: Leica SP8, ImageJ.
Congratulations to all winners and thank you to everyone who contributed their microscopy images throughout the past year. We also thank Nikon for sponsoring the prizes awarded to this year’s three winners.
A New Competition Season Has Begun
The 2026–2027 Prague Node Picture of the Year competition is now underway.
From June 2026 through May 2027, a Picture of the Month will be selected each month from images submitted by users of the Euro-BioImaging Prague Node. The twelve monthly winning images will automatically qualify for the Prague Node Picture of the Year 2027 competition.
Researchers and facility users of the Prague Node are invited to submit their best microscopy images throughout the year, showcasing both scientific discoveries and the beauty of the microscopic world.
Interested in participating?
Find all eligibility criteria, submission requirements and competition rules in the Picture of the Month guidelines, and follow the Picture of the Monthly winners page to see each month’s selected image as the competition unfolds.
We congratulate this year’s winners once again and look forward to another year of outstanding microscopy images from the Prague Node imaging community.
