Research team lands Honorable Mention in imaging contest

The image is arresting. You don’t have to know the science to see that. But when you do know the science, it is even more impressive.

A team of researchers in the lab of MUSC College of Pharmacy’s Patrick Woster, SmartState Endowed Chair in Medicinal Chemistry and chair of the Department of Drug Discovery and Biomedical Sciences, was awarded Honorable Mention in the Biotek Imaging competition “Imaging Perspectives 2021.”

The team included Woster’s graduate student Catherine Mills, his summer research student Megan Francis, his senior staff scientist Ivett Piña, and his colleague Yuri Peterson, associate professor of drug discovery and biomedical sciences.

The picture in question shown natural killer cells (red) engulfing GFP-labeled neuroblastoma cells (green) in vitro following stimulation with the team’s  immunostimulatory compound 42j. The dark cells are dead neuroblastoma cells. Live cell imaging was performed using a Cytation 5 at 10x using two channel fluorescence and brightfield imaging.

Imaging Perspectives 2021 was the fourth annual imaging contest held by Biotek, which designs and manufactures innovative life science instrumentation.