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The Parc Científic de Barcelona delivers of the sixth edition of the «Fotorecerca» Awards

By 20 de December de 2013November 18th, 2020No Comments
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The winners with Maluquer Salvador, Executive Director of the Parc Científic de Barcelona, during the awards ceremony.
 20.12.2013

The Parc Científic de Barcelona delivers of the sixth edition of the «Fotorecerca» Awards

The awards ceremony of the sixth edition of the «Fotorecerca» –the scientific photography contest that the Parc Cientific de Barcelona holds annually– was held today. This year's winning photograph «A busy neuronal network» was presented by Roger Torrent and Adriana Sànchez Danès, researchers at the Stem Cells and Neural Plasticity Laboratory of the Institute of Biomedicine of the University of Barcelona (IBUB). Anna Lladó and Lídia Bardia, researchers from the Scientific Advanced Digital Microscopy Platform at IRB Barcelona, obtained the second prize for the image «Art-zheimer Brain".


«A busy neural network», the winning photograph of the first prize –a SX170 Canon digital camera –shows the generation of plaque neurons from induced human pluripotent stem cells (iPSC). iPSCs, generated for the first time in 2006 by Shinya Yamanaka (Nobel Prize for Medicine 2012), offer a unique opportunity to recapitulate in vitro phenotype expression in human tissues from both healthy individuals and sick patients, and are very useful for the study of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, or Huntington’s disease. In vitro disease modelling opens the door to the development of strategies for the treatment and prevention of these diseases where early diagnosis is crucial. The photograph was obtained with a confocal microscope (Leica TCS – SP5), using a 20x lens.

«Art- zheimer Brain», the image awarded with the second prize –the photography book ‘Magnum, Magnum‘ edited by Lunwerg– shows the brain of a mouse brain affected by Alzheimer’s disease. In order to see inside, the brain was dehydrated with methanol and made optically transparent. Images were acquired using a light plane that was swept on the brain from different angles. The device used is the MacroSPIM, a last-generation system built at the Advanced Digital Microscopy Scientific Platform at IRB Barcelona that allows acquiring 3D images of whole organs (not dissected). Labeled areas correspond to: Alzheimer’s plaques in white, blood vessels and tissue contour coded in different colors depending on how deep they are located within the brain. The samples were provided by researchers Enrico Radaelli and Sebastian Munck, from KU Leuven.

Forty three photographs, taken by personnel from the different research institutes, companies, technology platforms and other organizations located within the Parc Científic de Barcelona, were submitted to the call. The three other finalists were: «Eclipse» by Maria Marsal, IBMB-CSIC researcher; «On the Groove» by Daniel Blasi, researcher at the PCB Drug Discovery Platform; and «Heart Galaxy» by Claudia Di Guglielmo, researcher at IBEC.

All submitted photographs will be displayed on plasma screens at the reception areas of the Cluster and the Torres R+I+D building.

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