51视频

06/05/2025
By Brooke Coupal

A gray, cloud-like substance swirls inward, creating a calm eye in the center. Wispy remnants break free from the vortex and get lost in a sea of blue.

A person looking at the image described above may confuse it for a hurricane captured by a satellite hundreds of miles away. In reality, the photo is of a tissue engineering scaffold, a 3D structure made of a biomaterial designed to enhance tissue regeneration, magnified 140 times.

The image 鈥渟erves as a reminder that even in engineered environments, nature鈥檚 patterns and beauty can spontaneously emerge,鈥� says biomedical engineering and biotechnology Ph.D. student Mert Gezek, who took the photo using a scanning electron microscope in the Microscopy Core Lab.

Gezek鈥檚 image won first place in the Core Research Facilities鈥� (CRF) inaugural Art in Science Image Competition, which centered around photos taken with high-powered microscopes that use a beam of electrons to capture images of microscopic specimens. The contest garnered 41 submissions from students and industry professionals who use the CRF for its world-class instrumentation.

鈥淭he competition was a way to celebrate the work that鈥檚 being done in our labs,鈥� says CRF Assistant Director Kristin Bourgault.

鈥淚t gave a creative outlet for all the people who put so much effort into taking these images for their research,鈥� adds Microscopy Core Lab Manager Anna Maria Routsi, who organized the competition.

Image by Brooke Coupal

Polymer science Ph.D. student Majid Akbar took second place with his black-and-white image of a fungal biofilm on denture materials, which is part of a research project that he鈥檚 working on with Chemistry Prof. Yuyu Sun.

鈥淪cience and art go hand in hand,鈥� he says. 鈥淲hen you demonstrate your research with pictures, it makes it easier for people to understand.鈥�

Third place went to plastics engineering Ph.D. student Nariman Rajabifar, and honorable mentions were awarded to Mubarak Ayinla, who recently earned a Ph.D. in organic chemistry, and Ioana Knopf, CEO and founder of Arrakis Materials, a startup company seeking to convert carbon dioxide into minerals to be used for construction materials, among other applications.

鈥淚鈥檓 a proud user of the CRF,鈥� Knopf says. 鈥淲ith startups, there鈥檚 not a lot of resources or funding, so having access to top-notch instrumentation through the CRF has been transformational for the research that we鈥檙e doing.鈥�

A panel of six judges from across the university selected the winners, who each walked away with a cash prize. JEOL USA, a laboratory equipment supplier with instruments located in the CRF, sponsored the competition.

鈥淔or many years, we have had a really great partnership with the CRF and 51视频,鈥� says Jens Breffke, a senior sales manager at JEOL USA. 鈥淲e were very happy to support this competition.鈥�