With this extraordinary image, Dr. Werner Zuschratter won the Olympus Award for "Image of the Year" in a global competition.
The image shows a rat fetus about 3 cm in size. The specimen was originally prepared in a previous research project at the University Hospital many decades ago to study the effects of pharmaceuticals on embryonic development.
For me it is a challenge to capture a widely transparent sample of this size completely in 3D with a microscope and to differentiate tissues by their specific autofluorescence (either by spectral separation or due to their lifetimes). For this reason, we reused old samples originally prepared for development studies and imaged them by confocal and time-resolved light-sheet microscopy. The scans resulted in impressive pictures that emanate something exceptionally aesthetic but also stimulate reflection."
To the award: https://www.olympus-lifescience.com/en/landing/ioty-2020/
Find more in this article about the winning picture: https://www.livescience.com/rat-fetus-photo-contest-olympus.html