Stunning high-definition images of the inner working of cells

GE Healthcare announced the winners of this year’s IN Cell Image Competition at the High Content Analysis (HCA) Conference in San Francisco, USA. Each of the three regional winners, from Asia, Europe and North America, has won a trip to New York City in March 2010 to see their images shown on NBC’s high-definition TV screen in Times Square. All short-listed images can be viewed at www.gelifesciences.com/incellcompetition and a short film here.

This year’s competition saw over 70 beautiful images generated by scientists from around the world using the IN Cell Analyzer system. An expert scientific panel, short-listed 30 entries, which were then opened to public vote and to delegates at the leading HCA Conference in San Francisco. This year’s competition was again supported by BioTechniques.

“Gaining insight into the complex workings of cells in their true biological context helps scientists deepen their understanding of their chosen field of research,” said Dr Stephen Minger, Head of Research and Development, Cell Technologies, GE Healthcare: “This year we have seen entries from diverse disciplines, including cancer research, depression, neurological diseases, obesity and dermatology. This illustrates the increasing adoption of high content analysis as an integral tool in the research arsenal.”

High Content Analysis (HCA) has become essential in many areas of life science research and drug discovery. HCA employs cellular assays in a high throughput imaging and analysis format, which facilitates more complex experiments in true biological context, and helps scientists get better data and learn more about cellular systems more quickly.

The exceptional image quality of GE Healthcare’s IN Cell Analyzer is a pre-requisite for the generation of good data in imaging assays, as exemplified once again by the high quality of entries in the 2009/2010 competition. The system is also offered with a variety of award-winning, easy-to-use flexible software tools, which can cope with a wide range of assays to aid rapid data interpretation. IN Cell Analyzer customers can also receive reliable, specialist support from GE Healthcare, including the unique remote support of Bio Insite™.