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Picture of the week

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27 October 2023 The image shows a uerine environment made of a jelly-like and transparent material, with a cylindrical 3D structure.

Spotlight: Creating an artificial uterus

Science & Technology EMBL researchers have created an engineered uterus that allows a closer look at a mouse embryo’s development and its interactions with the uterine environment.

2023

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31 August 2023 Part of a fruit fly embryo imaged against a dark background, with nuclei stained with DAPI (white), and a cluster of pole cells, marked by Vasa protein (yellow)

Spotlight: Off to the pole

Science & Technology For a fruit fly embryo to develop correctly, key factors need to get to the right place at the right time – a journey that starts in the developing egg, as seen in this image from the Ephrussi Group at EMBL Heidelberg

2023

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10 July 2023 Green parasites on black background

Spotlight: Shedding light on deadly parasites

Lab MattersScience & Technology This single-celled organism the size of a dust particle is capable of causing deadly tropical diseases in both humans and livestock –Trypanosoma brucei, in an image by Luciano Dolce from EMBL.

2023

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23 February 2023 Image showing the pulsed green laser exciting the photoacoustic signal of the sample in the cuvette.

Spotlight: Using light and sound to see into the brain

Lab MattersScience & Technology Researchers in the Prevedel Group use photoacoustic spectroscopy setup to test and optimise probes before their usage in mouse neuroscience.

2023

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20 January 2023 bright yellow and striped flatworms

Spotlight: A ‘devil’ of a flatworm

Lab MattersScience & Technology Tasmanian flatworms add to an EMBL researcher’s collection as she studies principles that control animal body size.

2023

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19 January 2023 Cross sections of mouse colon, with mucus stained in blue and nuclei stained in red. The right section has been treated with a mucolytic agent.

Spotlight: Colours of the colon

Lab MattersScience & Technology Mucus present in the mouse colon can be visualised using Alcian blue staining, as imaged here by EMBL predoctoral fellow Linda Decker.

2023

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23 December 2022 Several zebrafish embryos in different colours during gastrulation

Spotlight: Zebrafish embryos to make this season jolly

Lab MattersScience & Technology Zebrafish embryos during gastrulation, a very early stage of development, to study the effect of temperature on vertebrate embryo development.

2022

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31 August 2022 A Physarum polycephalum with different colours, where each colour shows the expansion of the cell at various time points.

Spotlight: A giant in action

Science & Technology Physarum polycephalum, a single, giant cell containing tens of thousands of nuclei is large enough to be photographed with a phone.

2022

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24 August 2022 A building with glass facades and courtyard in front.

Spotlight: EMBL Imaging Centre, Heidelberg

Lab Matters EMBL’s imaging centre makes advanced microscopy technologies accessible to the international scientific community.

2022

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29 June 2021

Planetary egg cells

As evocative as a constellation of planets, these egg cells within a mouse ovary are at different stages of maturity.

2021

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23 June 2021 Bright blue oblong shape with white hairs on surface on black background.

Starlet sea anemone

Science & Technology EMBL PhD student Anniek Stokkermans captured this side view of a Nematostella vectensis larva during this transition, using instrumentation in the Advanced Light Microscopy Facility at EMBL Heidelberg.

2021

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15 June 2021 Small star-like objects are scattered throughout a black background

Twinkle, twinkle, little nuclear pore complex

Science & Technology As perfect as a summer night sky, these nuclear pores help calibrate a customised super-resolution microscope in EMBL’s Ries group.

2021

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8 June 2021 Purple, blue and yellow dots on a black background.

Dream team

Science & Technology At EMBL, we have many dream teams – groups of individuals who support each other, innovate, and work together. One of those dream teams bridges two core facilities at EMBL Rome.

2021

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1 June 2021 Two purple and white spheres against dark background.

Nuclear twins

Science & Technology Captured by EMBL postdoc Arina Rybina, these ‘nuclear twins’ are two daughter nuclei straight after division of a HeLa cell.

2021

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25 May 2021 Microscope image of an engineered human blood vessel, featuring individual cells outlined in pink with blue nuclei.

Barriers against malaria

Science & Technology The Bernabeu Group aims to increase our knowledge of cerebral malaria, using in vitro engineered networks of human blood vessels and brain cells.

2021

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18 May 2021 Three bright red orange objects in shapes approximating circles with some protrusions are set against a black background.

Cellular fireball or immune cells?

Science & Technology The EMBL Picture of the Week features a series of Jurkat T cells during different stages of the activation process.

2021

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27 April 2021 Microscope image of liver cells, highlighted in various colours.

Painting liver cells

Science & Technology A page from a biologist’s colouring book? EMBL’s new interior wall design? Not quite – a bunch of liver cells, grown in the lab so that scientists can learn about fatty liver disease, or steatosis.

2021

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20 April 2021 Black-and-white sphere with coronavirus spike protein structures and a two-layered ring of virus membrane superimposed.

Variations on a spike

Science & Technology What does coronavirus’s spike protein look like in 3D? EMBL scientists and colleagues used cryo-electron tomography and molecular dynamics simulations to find out.

2021

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13 April 2021 EMBL Heidelberg's main building, the top of the façade lit up by sunlight.

Morning sun

Lab Matters Throwback to June 2014: While EMBL Heidelberg’s main entrance is still in the dark, the well-known EMBL logo is already lit by the morning sun.

2021

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6 April 2021 Sea anemone polyp seen through a microscope, cell nuclei and muscles highlighted.

A multifunctional mouth

Science & Technology This image of a young Nematostella vectensis polyp shows two of the characteristic tentacles as well as the gaping mouth of the animal.

2021

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30 March 2021 A close-up photo of a shiny droplet of liquid that has been placed into one of the wells of a crystallisation plate.

Droplet beauty

Science & Technology Scientists at EMBL Hamburg use droplets of protein solution to grow protein crystals. By exposing the crystals to X-rays, they are able to determine the protein’s molecular structure.

2021

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23 March 2021 Man pouring water in a glass bottle to make coffee.

Green coffee at EMBL

Lab Matters The cafeteria at EMBL Heidelberg now offers espresso and cappuccino with a more intense flavour and which are produced in a ‘green’ way.

2021

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16 March 2021 Pink blooming tree in front of functional building.

Italian Spring

Lab Matters EMBL’s site in Monterotondo has recently been blessed with blue skies and sunshine, leading to trees blooming early on campus.

2021

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9 March 2021 This photo shows the European Photon and Neutron (EPN) science campus on the peninsula at the confluence of the Isère and Drac rivers, where EMBL Grenoble is located.

Touch of springtime in Grenoble

Lab Matters This photo shows the European Photon and Neutron (EPN) science campus where EMBL Grenoble is located. A delightful spring breeze in the air melts the last remaining patches of snow in the mountains.

2021

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2 March 2021

Sleeping beauty

Science & Technology Like caterpillars turning into beautiful butterflies, fruit fly larvae have to go through metamorphosis to finish their development. However, despite the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster being one of the best studied model organisms in biology, comparatively little attention has been given to this…

2021

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23 February 2021 Greyscale image of a cell with its internal components visible

Seeing through a cell

Science & Technology Liang Xue used cryo-electron tomography to capture this detailed image of a Mycoplasma pneumoniae cell.

2021

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16 February 2021 An assembly of proteins in an enzyme, presented in a cartoon style.

Cellular modern art

Science & Technology This week's Picture of the Week, which could also be a masterpiece of modern art, shows the enzyme RNA polymerase III, an assembly of 17 individual proteins combined into this complex structure.

2021

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9 February 2021 Crystal cubes seen through a microscope

Purity, beauty, and perfection

Science & Technology The regular structures of crystals are a source of inspiration and fascination to us humans. While the crystals in this picture were not grown in nature, but instead by Petra Drncova from EMBL Grenoble, they share the same attributes as those found in nature.

2021

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2 February 2021 A bacterial cell with the parts needed for information flow from DNA to messenger RNA to protein highlighted in different colours.

The central dogma of molecular biology

Science & Technology This colourful image shows biological information flow in action: It’s a supramolecular assembly of DNA, RNA and proteins, observed directly inside a bacterial cell while turning genetic information into protein.

2021

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26 January 2021 Two X-ray mirrors installed in the macromolecular crystallography beamline P14 at EMBL Hamburg. The mirrors are visible in the photo as dark rectangular crystal blocks, with two metal holders supporting the crystals in a stress-free position. The mirrors are inserted into a vacuum-compatible stainless steel vessel.

Mirror, mirror

Science & Technology Scientists at EMBL Hamburg use specially designed mirrors to reflect and focus X-ray beams onto tiny crystals made of proteins or other biological molecules.

2021

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19 January 2021 3D rendering of a human cell, attacked by a virus.

Cell under attack

Science & Technology It’s almost a year since the coronavirus outbreak was declared a pandemic, affecting all our lives. While the virus continues its grip on the world, scientists are understanding it better and better, increasing our knowledge about it and opening up new ways to fight it.

2021

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12 January 2021 A metallic tool.

Homage to a vital tool

Science & Technology Structural biologists want to study proteins at the atomic level. The device shown in this Picture of the Week is essential for this.

2021

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5 January 2021 colourful abstract photo with brilliant yellow-green streaks interspersed with shiny pink yellow and blue dots randomly displayed in photo

It’s like a party in your brain

Science & Technology Fluorescent dyes light up a cellular community of neurons and brain immune cells (microglia), which were derived from stem cells.

2021

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22 December 2020

Cells in the holiday spirit

Science & Technology It is that time of year to get into the holiday spirit, prepare for some time at home and relax after a strange and stressful year. Even the cells in our Picture of the Week are getting into the holiday spirit, forming this colourful Christmas tree.

2020

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15 December 2020 Snowy mountains behind functional buildings. The Moon is up in the sky.

First powder over EMBL Grenoble

Lab Matters The first snowflakes have fallen on the Vercors Mountains, right behind the EMBL Grenoble building, and an almost full moon is showing up during a sunny morning.

2020

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8 December 2020 Windowed façade reflecting leafless trees.

Clear views

Lab Matters With the external scaffolding removed, another step in the construction of the EMBL Imaging Centre is complete. Now we get a first glimpse of the final look of this stunning building.

2020

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1 December 2020 Rainbow on a cloudy sky above technical buildings.

Rainbow over the Hanseatic city

Lab Matters Hamburg hosts one of EMBL’s six sites. The city is notorious for its windy and rainy weather. Lots of rain also means a high chance of beautiful rainbows!

2020

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24 November 2020 Red loops on a black background are dotted with bright red flecks and pale blue ovals as part of a confocal microscope image of bone marrow cells.

A loopy baseline

Science & Technology Studying cancers means also knowing what healthy cells look like. In this case, mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) from healthy bone marrow are a bit ‘loopy’.

2020

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17 November 2020 Car parking rooftop with a solar power plant under construction on it.

Solar power

Lab Matters Despite the cold autumn weather, workers are busy on the rooftop of the parking garage at EMBL Heidelberg. The 2176 m² rooftop is getting transformed into a combination of a green roof and a photovoltaic plant. The planted green roof will retain rainwater, while the solar panels – installed in…

2020

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10 November 2020 Green coloured brain cells next to a microfluidic network.

Understanding malaria

Science & Technology To help understand cerebral malaria the Bernabeu group has created in vitro engineered networks of human blood vessels.

2020

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3 November 2020 Rainbow above the EMBL building in Heidelberg, surrounded by woods.

Under the rainbow

Science & Technology On autumn days without Heidelberg’s characteristic fog, the woods present themself in beautiful colours. You may even capture a rainbow.

2020

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27 October 2020 Microscopic image of a cell, nucleus visible in bright green, cell membrane stained with a purple dye against black background.

Party at the nucleus?

Science & Technology The nucleus of this cell fluoresces in bright green thanks to GFP-labelled nucleoporin proteins. EMBL scientists use engineered nucleoporins as 3D reference standards to improve super-resolution microscopy.

2020

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20 October 2020 Greyscale image of two sheep grazing.

Ecological lawn mowers

Lab Matters In 2012, EMBL used ecological lawn mowers to keep the grass short around the Advanced Training Centre at EMBL Heidelberg.

2020

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13 October 2020 Sea anemone polyp in side view showing two arms.

Crazy arms

Science & Technology Sea anemones are amazing creatures. Despite their plant-like appearance and their tendency to remain fixed in one spot, they are actually animals.

2020

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6 October 2020 A filmstrip showing the healing process of a wound on cellular level.

Time heals all wounds

Science & Technology We’ve all had wounds at certain times in our lives. But they heal due to the self-repairing mechanisms in the body.

2020

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29 September 2020 A metal rack holding glass test tubes with yellow and red solutions in them.

Colourful test tubes

Science & Technology To study the effect of commonly used drugs on bacterial envelopes, EMBL scientists applied a biochemical assay using a colour reaction. The deeper the red, the stronger the disruptive effect of the drug.

2020

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22 September 2020 Black and white electron microscope image of Anopheles mosquito gametes, looking much like feathery fern leaf stencils

A bloom of crystals

Science & Technology How does your crystal garden grow? EMBL's Electron Microscopy Core Facility was able to capture this garden of blooming crystals as they studied mosquito reproductive cells.

2020

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15 September 2020 Fluorescent microscopic image of fruit fly larva with tubular heart cells in gold and the remainder of image in magenta

Fruit fly with a heart of gold

Science & Technology Not just another pretty fruit fly. This magenta and golden drosophila larva is lit up with a fluorescent molecule to help researchers study heart formation.

2020

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8 September 2020 A network of tubes and cells in red and blue.

Not a galaxy far, far away

Science & Technology While this may seem like a nebula made up of interstellar clouds of dust and ionised gases, this image isn’t of a galaxy beyond the Milky Way.

2020

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1 September 2020 larval fruit fly cells

A luminous larval love light

Science & Technology Those heart-shaped cells aren't just for show. They help tell the story of two proteins working together

2020

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25 August 2020 Fruit fly larval cells looking like blue lightning

Breathing beneath the skin

Science & Technology Beautiful flashes of blue colour help light the way for researchers to study cells in fruit fly larva that provide oxygen to tissues.

2020

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18 August 2020 Three cells, each looking like a face.

Three little ghosts

Science & Technology Despite their ghostly appearance, these are very real cell nuclei infected with Influenza A virus – the only influenza virus known to cause pandemics.

2020

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11 August 2020 Different parts of a fruit fly arranged into an artificial green eye.

The eye of science

Science & Technology This image is a composite of lateral pentascolopidial organs, a wing imaginal disc pouch, and an epithelial wound in a Drosophila larva. The organs are arranged here like eyelashes. Cells surrounding an epidermal wound appear as the iris and pupil of this artistic eye.

2020

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4 August 2020 A long string of cells - red in the centre, yellow at the border.

Fish close-up

Science & Technology This group of cells represents an interesting example of organ formation where cells simultaneously move and change their shapes in a highly coordinated manner.

2020

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28 July 2020 Small dots. Some in bright yellow.

An ocean of droplets

Science & Technology Bacterial cells are embedded in microfluidic droplets in oil. The fluorescence indicates the presence of the targeted DNA strain with the help of a characteristic DNA sequence.

2020

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21 July 2020 A row of ceiling windows

A bright view of the future

Science & Technology The image shows one of the four rows of roof lights above the atrium, which is the main public space of the Imaging Centre.

2020

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14 July 2020 The image shows a larva of Platynereis dumerilii, a marine worm. The body of the worm is shown in grey. Muscle strands are coloured in red. The muscles of one individual strand are highlighted in different, brighter colours.

Muscular worm larva

Science & Technology The image shows a larva of Platynereis dumerilii, a marine worm. The image here was produced by Constantin Pape, a visiting predoctoral fellow in the Kreshuk group at EMBL Heidelberg.

2020

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7 July 2020 The rainbow pride flag hanging in front of the Advanced Training Centre at EMBL Heidelberg. Picture taken in summer 2020.

Pride at EMBL

Lab Matters EMBL brings together more than 1700 people from all over the world, from a variety of academic and cultural backgrounds. This creates an environment in which there is constant exchange of both scientific knowledge and cultural heritage. While it seems obvious that EMBL, as an international…

2020

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30 June 2020 Beekeeper checking one of the hives near the Adacned Training Centre at EMBL Heidelberg.

Busy bees at the ATC

Lab Matters Local beekeeper Jörg Staffel has set up three bee colonies on the grass slope in front of the ATC building.

2020

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23 June 2020

Delicious science

Lab Matters Elisa Kreibich from EMBL’s Krebs group baked an EMBL cake for the farewell of Alexandra Martitz, the first master student in their lab.

2020

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16 June 2020 Composite image of fly larvae organs making up a flower

From fly to flower

Science & Technology In this composite image, visual artist Mona Kakanj assembled three different biological structures in fly larvae into a flower. The original images were taken as part of a research project by Parisa Kakanj in Maria Leptin’s group.

2020

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9 June 2020 Mouse embryonic fibroblasts and their cell skeletons

Glow-in-the-dark cell skeletons

Science & Technology This image shows mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs), their cell skeletons (green) and nuclei (blue) under a confocal microscope, photographed by Julia Hansen in the lab of Matthieu Boulard at EMBL Rome.

2020

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2 June 2020

Organelles in space

Science & Technology This image is a 3D-rendering of the automatic segmentation of a HeLa cell, made by Julian Hennies from the Schwab team at EMBL Heidelberg.

2020

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26 May 2020

Underwater butterfly

Science & Technology In the Leptin Group, Eva Hasel investigates the innate immune system in Japanese rice fish.

2020

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19 May 2020

The birth of tentacles

Science & Technology The image shown here, taken by Anniek Stokkermans from EMBL’s Ikmi Group, shows a larva of Nematostella vectensis.

2020

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12 May 2020

Shine like an underwater star

Science & Technology This image of the starlet sea anemone was taken by Petrus Steenbergen using a stereoscope.

2020

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6 May 2020

Wings without wings

Science & Technology The image shown here, taken by Daniel Rios-Barrera from the Leptin Group shows the cells of the early wing tissue of the fly during larval development.

2020

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28 April 2020

Dancing chromosomes

Science & Technology In human cells, the genetic material is packaged into 23 different DNA molecules, the chromosomes. Each chromosome is present in two copies, one inherited from the paternal sperm, and the other from the maternal egg. During most of the cell’s life, chromosomes take the shape of long,…

2020

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21 April 2020

Evolution of the eye

Science & Technology This Picture of the Week shows a stained cryosection of a retina – the light-sensitive part of the eye – of an ancient fish, the lamprey.

2020

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14 April 2020

Gazing at healing wounds

Science & Technology What may look like a branch of a tree with the first flower buds emerging after winter are, in fact, tracheal cells of a fruit fly larva and their nuclei.

2020

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7 April 2020

Exciting science!

Science & Technology EMBL is all about exciting science, through which we aim to achieve a fundamental understanding of biological processes.

2020

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31 March 2020

Artistic life sciences

Science & Technology Paola Bertucci, from the Arendt Group at EMBL Heidelberg, studies the evolution of Platynereis dumerilii – a species of annelid polychaete worm.

2020

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24 March 2020

Springtime in Heidelberg

Lab Matters The iconic ATC – celebrating its 10 year anniversary this year – reflects the blue sky, the clouds and the rays of the Sun.

2020

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17 March 2020

Wrapped in purple

Science & Technology The medaka shown in this Picture of the Week was captured by Eva Hasel, a postdoc in the Leptin group at EMBL Heidelberg.

2020

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10 March 2020

It’s Lab Ski Day!

Lab Matters This image, taken by Raphaël Cohen-Aberdam from the Cipriani team, shows that the weather for the Grenoble Lab Ski Day 2020 was just perfect!

2020

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3 March 2020

Snowy day

Lab Matters Colder winter weather has finally arrived EMBL-EBI. It’s the first time the site has seen snow this winter.

2020

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25 February 2020

Accidental beauty

Science & Technology In the Trivedi Group at EMBL Barcelona, Krisztina Arató and Jia Le Lim study the early development of zebrafish embryos.

2020

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18 February 2020

Mapping space inside the cell

Science & Technology In this image, Julian Hennies from the Schwab Team has reconstructed the 3D structure of a human cell's organelles.

2020

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11 February 2020

Breathe in, breathe out

Science & Technology This image shows the tracheal system of a live fruit fly larva. Daniel Rios from the Leptin Group and Dimitri Kromm from the Hufnagel Group used this advanced microscope to investigate the dynamics of tracheal cells during development.

2020

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4 February 2020

From cosmetics to blood cells

Science & Technology Morgan Oatley and her colleagues in Christophe Lancrin’s group investigated how haematopoietic stem cells emerge from the endothelium in developing mouse embryos.

2020

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28 January 2020

Injured lung

Science & Technology Muzamil Majid Khan, a postdoc in the Pepperkok team at EMBL Heidelberg, studied the piece of tissue visible in this image.

2020

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21 January 2020

Look at these curves!

Science & Technology The image shown here is a 3D-rendering created by Julian Hennies from the Schwab team.

2020

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14 January 2020

Ring of fire

Science & Technology This image has been composed from thousands of individual super-resolution microscopy images. It was created by Markus Mund in the Ries Group.

2020

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7 January 2020

Skittles for science

Science & Technology What might also be an artistic representation of a scattered bowl of Skittles is actually a 3D reconstruction of a high-pressure frozen HeLa cell.

2020

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31 December 2019

Tumour takeover

Science & Technology Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths in women. It is so deadly because tumours often return after successful cancer treatment. This recurrence is caused by individual dormant cancer cells remaining inside the breast. These cells can develop into active cancer cells…

2019

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24 December 2019

Launching proteins

Science & Technology What looks like a photo-series of an explosive eruption are actually uptaking proteins, captured by Markus Mund from the Ries Group at EMBL Heidelberg. The images were made in an attempt to learn how the different proteins that take up molecules into the cells via endocytosis – the cellular…

2019

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17 December 2019

Reshaping our DNA

Science & Technology DNA is present in each cell of our body. If all the DNA from one human cell was removed and aligned in a single strand, it would in theory add up to a total length of about two metres. In order to fit into the nucleus of a cell, DNA has to be compressed by […]

2019

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10 December 2019

Birth of two HeLa stars

Science & Technology This picture of the week, taken by Arina Rybina in the Ellenberg group at EMBL Heidelberg, shows a high-resolution 3D microscopy image of living human cells: HeLa cells. In this fascinating fluorescing microspace, two newly formed daughter nuclei are captured to study the assembly of nuclear pore…

2019

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3 December 2019 Black and blue hexagon shapes with some yellow and red hot spots

Skin mosaic

Science & Technology This beautiful mosaic of mostly hexagonal cells is the outer skin layer of a zebrafish larva as seen under a microscope. Each skin cell exhibits a unique pattern of actin ridges. Actin is a family of globular multifunctional proteins found in almost all eukaryotic cells. Actin forms microfilaments,…

2019

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26 November 2019

EMBL makes insulin visible

Science & Technology The hormone insulin helps to remove sugar from the blood after a meal. This is important, as in the long term high blood sugar levels damage our bodies. Diabetes of type 1 or type 2 is a direct consequence of a failure to produce sufficient insulin or to release it from the cells in which […]

2019

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19 November 2019

Formation of a brain

Science & Technology The brain is the most complex organ in the human body. Yet despite it being the organ that makes us conscious beings – and despite the fact that researchers have been studying it for generations – it’s still a constant source of surprise. To help lift the veil on some of its mystery, Lina…

2019

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5 November 2019

A mix of sensations

Science & Technology Traditionally, we talk about having five senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch. In reality, our bodies are capable of much more. Sitting right under our skin are a variety of sensory neurons, which are specialised in detecting light touch, pain, temperature, itch or the body’s position.…

2019

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29 October 2019

Inside out, and grub becomes fly

Science & Technology The three bluish blobs shown in the top right corner of this image may not resemble the sphere of noodles that is the human brain, but they are still essential – at least for the fruit fly. This Picture of the Week shows the brain lobes of Drosophila. It’s an insect so tiny and so […]

2019

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22 October 2019

A perfect model

Science & Technology Is it a fungus or a strange plant? Actually it’s the larval form of Platynereis – a group of marine ringed worms. Scientists have been using them in their studies for the past 70 years, and they are among the preferred lab organisms. They are easy to keep in the lab, and under temperature and…

2019

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15 October 2019

Bringing life science to you

Lab Matters EMBL not only produces excellent science and innovative technologies; it also shares its knowledge and experience with partners from around the world – and with the public. As well as offering teacher training in the European Learning Laboratory for the Life Sciences, science movie nights, and…

2019

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8 October 2019

The zebrafish earned its stripes

Science & Technology Despite missing the characteristic stripes one would expect from a zebra – or a zebrafish – the fractals in this Picture of the Week show a zebrafish; or at least some cells in a zebrafish embryo, a few hours after fertilisation. Zebrafish are not only popular aquarium fish, they are also an…

2019

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1 October 2019

The evolution of the eye

Science & Technology Model organisms are species that are studied extensively to understand particular biological phenomena and processes, with the expectation that discoveries made in the model organism will provide insight into the workings of other organisms. The small marine ringed worm Platynereis dumerilii gained…

2019

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25 September 2019

A giant called dumpy

Science & Technology Fruit flies have something that we don’t have: they produce a protein called dumpy. This protein is the largest created by insects, and is comparable in size to the largest human protein – titin. While titin is vital for our muscle function, dumpy connects the soft cells of the insect’s…

2019

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17 September 2019

The end of a productive day

Lab Matters It’s evening and the Sun is setting over the mountains surrounding the city of Grenoble – home to one of EMBL’s six sites – bathing the mountaintops in fiery red light. The Picture of the Week, taken by Zuzanna Kaczmarska shows the lab she worked in after a long and busy day. Bottles…

2019

lab-matterspicture-of-the-week

10 September 2019

Tracking the beginning of life

Science & Technology All mammalian life starts with the fusion of egg and sperm, resulting in the creation of a single cell called a zygote. This develops into an embryo through a series of cell divisions, in which the number of cells doubles at each step. Todays’ Picture of the Week was taken by Manuel Eguren of the…

2019

picture-of-the-weekscience-technology

3 September 2019

A robust allrounder

Science & Technology This gorgeous image of a stained adult marine worm was created by former EMBL postdoc Hernando Martinez using structured microscopy. The worm itself was captured during plankton extraction off the coast of Sweden. There are over 10 000 species of these swimming worms, and they have adapted to every…

2019

picture-of-the-weekscience-technology

27 August 2019

Where science meets art

Lab Matters The most basic building blocks of life are the biological molecules in our cells. While these molecules are too small to see with most microscopes, they have incredibly complex and beautiful structures. Therefore, the Protein Data Bank in Europe (PDBe), The Art Society CANTAB and The Art Society…

2019

lab-matterspicture-of-the-week

20 August 2019

When life takes shape

Science & Technology Today’s picture of the week is not only a colourful one, it is also a snapshot of the vast number of shapes that the cells inside an animal body can adopt. How this variety comes about is investigated in the Leptin group at EMBL Heidelberg.  To understand the shapes of the cells in fruit fly…

2019

picture-of-the-weekscience-technology

13 August 2019

Have fun, be protected

People & Perspectives Working in a lab very often requires some kind of protection: gloves, safety goggles, lab coat, hearing protection. Sandra – now at BASF in Ludwigshafen – had fun getting ready for her work in the medicinal chemistry lab at EMBL! Here, she is about to grind potassium permanganate and copper…

2019

people-perspectivespicture-of-the-week

6 August 2019

The muscles that regulate blood pressure

Science & Technology Low blood pressure (hypotension) or high blood pressure (hypertension) are risk factors for many diseases and affect more than 20% of the global population. How blood pressure is regulated is part of the research done in the Heppenstall group at EMBL Rome.  In today’s Picture of the…

2019

picture-of-the-weekscience-technology

30 July 2019

Swiss day!

People & Perspectives The 1700 people working at EMBL’s six sites come from more than 80 different countries. Many of them haven’t come straight from their home country to one of the EMBL sites but have also lived in other countries in between. While all of them are proud to work at EMBL they are also proud of…

2019

people-perspectivespicture-of-the-week

23 July 2019

Muscle games

Science & Technology Every single moment of our life we use our muscles – most of the time without even thinking about it. Some muscles, like our heart, we cannot even control at all. How our brain communicates with our muscles is still not fully understood. The communication between our brain and our skeletal…

2019

picture-of-the-weekscience-technology

16 July 2019

The birth of new cells – when two become four

Science & Technology This colourful picture, taken by EMBL postdoc Arina Rybina using a confocal fluorescence microscope, shows human cells in the process of cell division. Eventually, each mother cell brings into existence two identical daughter cells. To visualise the process by light microscopy, different cell…

2019

picture-of-the-weekscience-technology

9 July 2019

Working with a view

Lab Matters EMBL has six sites in Europe and the newest is EMBL Barcelona. It opened in October 2017 and is still growing. Eventually, it will be home to eight research groups, all of them working to discover how tissues and organs function and develop. EMBL Barcelona is located in the Barcelona Biomedical…

2019

lab-matterspicture-of-the-week

2 July 2019

Cell duplication

Science & Technology What looks like a pair of scary alien eyes is actually the final stage in the duplication of a cell. Cell duplication is preceded by a process called mitosis, in which the replicated chromosomes are separated into two new nuclei. Mitosis is the prerequisite for a cell to divide into two identical…

2019

picture-of-the-weekscience-technology

25 June 2019

A colourful day at EMBL-EBI

Lab Matters EMBL is an intergovernmental organisation, currently supported by 26 member states, one prospect and two associate member states. There are more than 1700 people working at EMBL, who come from more than 80 countries, creating a multicultural environment. EMBL also operates from six sites in Europe:…

2019

lab-matterspicture-of-the-week

18 June 2019

A no-brainer

Lab Matters Have you ever wondered what reflex testing is about? Why does your doctor tap the space below your knee with a hammer to see if your leg kicks forward? At the centre of this involuntary reaction is the muscle spindle, of which you can see a close-up in today’s Picture of the Week. Muscle spindles…

2019

lab-matterspicture-of-the-week

11 June 2019

Rainbow lab

Lab Matters Laboratories all over the world are often chaotic, a bit messy and look grey and unwelcoming. Not so in this lab, pictured by EMBL staff member Emily Savage. The differently coloured fluids, arranged in a row, bring vivid colours into the more subdued environment of the lab. The picture was taken…

2019

lab-matterspicture-of-the-week

4 June 2019

Colourful yeast

Lab Matters Most of us love brewer’s yeast, or at least the food that it’s helped us to produce since ancient times. Without Saccharomyces cerevisiae (its Latin name) we couldn’t enjoy wine, beer or most types of bread. Besides its role in food production, S. cerevisiae is also an important model…

2019

lab-matterspicture-of-the-week

28 May 2019

A fiery end to a productive day

Lab Matters EMBL’s sites provide spectacular views, such as this fiery sunset at the Wellcome Genome Campus in Hinxton. The campus, in the heart of the Cambridgeshire countryside, is home to several institutes and organisations working on genomics and computational biology. Among them is EMBL’s European…

2019

lab-matterspicture-of-the-week

21 May 2019

From fruit flies to cancer treatment

Science & Technology This image – resembling a network of rivers and canals – actually shows the tracheal tip cell of a fruit fly. Fruit flies are heavily used in research and they are a common model organism in developmental biology. Researchers at EMBL use the larvae of fruit flies to study tracheal cell…

2019

picture-of-the-weekscience-technology

14 May 2019

Walking on DNA

Science & Technology EMBL is a world-leading organisation for life science research. Its scientists work in diverse research fields spanning the whole of molecular biology. While the molecules the researchers are working on are often microscopic and impossible to see with the naked eye, one research topic clearly…

2019

picture-of-the-weekscience-technology

7 May 2019

EMBL sees it all

Lab Matters The hexagons visible in this Picture of the Week are the eyes of an ordinary housefly, visualised with a scanning electron microscope. Former staff member Anna Steyer, who captured this brilliant image, has coloured seven of the receptor areas of the eye to create a stylised version…

2019

lab-matterspicture-of-the-week

24 May 2012 Cell vesicles serve as transport pods to ferry cargo around the cell.

Picture Release: More than meets the eye

Science & Technology These spheres may look almost identical, but subtle differences between them revealed a molecular version of the robots from Transformers. Each sphere is a vesicle, a pod that cells use to transport materials between different compartments. The images, produced by Marco Faini from John…

2012

picture-of-the-weekscience-technology

20 March 2012 A slice through the tails of mouse sperm.

Picture release: Spring tails

Science & Technology As spring arrives, flowers seem to bloom everywhere – even under the microscopes at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany. But the ‘flowers’ in this picture actually help an animal, not a plant, to pass on its genes. The image, which has been false-coloured…

2012

picture-of-the-weekscience-technology

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