Rory Mulloy, image showing cells infected with SARS-CoV2.

Striking Image Competition 2026

11th Annual Competition

Hosted and organized by the Advanced Imaging and Microscopy (AIM) Network, the competition celebrates microscopy excellence and promotes colour blind friendly images. Showcase your research by submitting biology-related images captured on any optical microscope across the University of Calgary!

Striking Image Competition - Information and Submission

Rules, Criteria, Prizes, and Resources

Competition Information

Please read the following information before making your submission.

Submission Deadline: November 6, 2026

Maximum one entry per category per person.

All entries must:

  • Be from biology-related research
  • Have been acquired on an optical microscope at the University of Calgary
  • Be colour blind friendly (see Resources section)
  • Be made via our submission form
  • Be accompanied by a 300-character lay summary (see Resources section
  • Not contain embedded text (i.e. arrows, scale bars, annotations)
  • Not contain multiple panels
  • Not have been post-processed unless limited and adequately justified and described

File requirements: 

  • Submitted images must be in .TIFF format and limited to 100MB in size.
  • Submitted videos are limited to 30 seconds.

Submitting an image or video implies that you (the submitter):

  • Hold the rights to this image in terms of intellectual property and/or have obtained all necessary permissions to do so.
  • Give permission to the Striking Image Competition organizers to use your name and image in connection with the contest. (Note: You are not giving up IP of this image to us or any other party. Files will be retained by the Striking Image Competition organizers.

Failure to comply with these rules will result in disqualification.

  • Single Cell/Subcellular Images
  • Tissue/Organ/Whole Body Images
  • Lightsheet Images
  • Videos
  • Technical excellence (25%): focus, resolution, contrast/SNR, dynamic range, saturation (unless required to highlight dark features), depth-of-field, use of light; how demanding is it to acquire this image?
  • Artistic merit (25%): design (balance, proportion, framing), use of colour/shape/space, uniqueness, impact on viewer, composition (rhythm, patterns)
  • Scientific merit & communication (25%): lay summary (see Resources section) explaining the nature and/or the significance of the image/research within a broad context
  • Colour blind friendliness (25%): how colour blind friendly (see Resources section) is the image?

The top THREE submissions for the Single Cell/Subcellular and Tissue/Organ/Whole Body categories will receive prizes. 

The top ONE submission for the Lightsheet and Video categories will receive prizes.

First Prize: $300 to spend at a list of local businesses

Second Prize: $200 to spend at a list of local businesses

Third Prize: $100 to spend at a list of local businesses

NB: Organizers reserve the right to modify the number of winners based on number of submissions and other factors.

About Colour Blindness & Colour Blind Friendly Images

About Lay Summaries

  • Lay summary guidelines and examples for simplifying some scientific terms
  • Example of 300-character lay summary (modified from Nikon Small World)
    Trichome (fine outgrowths), stomata (small pores), and vessels of a southern live oak leaf. All three are essential to plant life: trichomes (white) protect against extreme weather and insects; stomata (purple) regulate the flow of gases in a plant; vessels (cyan) transport water throughout the leaf. 

Submission Form

To submit an entry your must be a member of the University of Calgary with a valid @ucalgary.ca email address. 

Submission form is open from September 15th to November 6th.

Submission Form
Banner stating "2025 Competition Winners"

Single Cell/Subcellular Images

First Prize (Joint)

Black background with yellow nuclei. "Clouds" of blue SARS-CoV-2 RNA surround some of the nuclei

Viruses seek to hijack host cells to replicate and spread, while cells evolve mechanisms to detect and suppress viral invasion. Here, we show that P-bodies (ancient cytoplasmic organelles) can trap SARS-CoV-2 RNA (cyan). The cell nuclei are yellow.

Rory Mulloy

First Prize (Joint)

Black background with cyan/blue astrocyte (human brain cell) taking up most of the area.

Astrocytes are the most abundant cells in the human brain—even outnumbering neurons by 3:1 in some regions. We used these images to confirm that our dish contained exclusively astrocytes before performing additional experiments.

Yohan Ricci Zonta

Third Prize

Black background with white/cyan fibers connecting to yellow, pink, and blue dots.

Neurons are the longest-lived cells in the body; most neurons survive for our entire lives. Connections between neurons can be seen in the image here: green and yellow fibers project outward from the nucleus (blue/grey) to connect with nearby cells

Zachary Bailey

Tissue, Organ & Whole Body Images

First Prize

Black background with three somite-forming organoids (purple with green tips) arranged in a triangular pattern

Somite-forming organoids derived from human pluripotent stem cells allow modelling the development of our vertebral column and congenital disorders that affect the spine.

Pranav Saligrama Ramesh

Second Prize (Joint)

Black background with red and cyan dots in the vague shape of a butterfly. The red dots are mainly present in the top left, while the bottom right is primarily cyan.

When iron builds up in the spinal cord it causes injury to nerve cells. Teal nerve cells on the right are marked by red scars of damage, while those on the left remain unharmed. The faint red spreading left shows the injury moving into healthy tissue

Dorsa Moezzi

Second Prize (Joint)

Black background with oval mostly in blue with an internal yellow section.

This image captures a detailed microscopic view of a section of murine colonic tissue, revealing the remarkable organization and complexity of the gut lining.

Rita Hannawayya

Lightsheet Image Category

Image of the nerves of the heart, black background with yellow/orange lines of the nerves

This image of a transparent mouse heart shows the dense network of sympathetic nerves which course throughout and are used by the nervous system to communicate with heart muscle cells.

Jordan Lee

Video Category

This video shows liver macrophages called Kupffer cells (pink). These cells are specialized at catching foreign components out of the blood, such as microbes. When bacteria (cyan) enter the bloodstream, Kupffer cells capture and internalize them.

Josefien Hommes