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Epiblast Stem Cells cultured on micropatterns of various geometries. The cells were stained for LaminB1 (Green), Tbra (Blue) and GM130 (Red). By Guillaume Blin (MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine, The University of Edinburgh)

Mouse embryos at E12.0 nuclei stained in 1) control and 2) compound mutants for AER-FGFs with a graded loss of fore and hindlimbs. By Christian Bonatto (National Cancer Institute, NIH)

Super-resolution image acquired via structured illumination microscopy of a single developing human neuron ectopically expressing the autism risk gene neuroligin-4X with enlarged growth cones. F-actin is in green, HA-tagged neuroligin-4X is in magenta, doublecortin is in cyan confirming its neuronal identity, and the nuclear marker DAPI is in grey. By Nicholas Gatford (Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London)

The image shows a confocal section of the organ of Corti (sensory epithelium of the cochlea) in the inner ear of a neonatal (P1) mouse. Actin is stained using phalloidin (cyan), nerve fibres using anti-β3-tubulin (yellow), and nuclei using DAPI (red). This is a developmental stage before the onset of air-borne hearing (which occurs around P11 in mice), and during a period of path-finding by afferent nerve fibres, and refinement and pruning of their terminals. Many fibres temporarily contact non-sensory supporting cells, before they establish permanent synaptic connections with the mechano-sensory hair cells. By Daniel Jagger (UCL Ear Institute)

Transverse section of a chimaeric E6.5 mouse embryo generated by aggregation of Id1-Venus reporter ES cells with a wild-type morula, stained for Id1-Venus (green), Nanog (red) and T (blue). By Mattias Malaguti (MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine The University of Edinburgh)

8-cell mouse embryo which has just aquired apical-basal polarity but we can still appreciate individual cells. E-Cadherin is labelled in red and pERM is labelled in white. By Sergio Menchero (CNIC Madrid)

E14.5 mouse embryo labeled for cartilage (Sox9-GFP, in biop-SpringGreen) and vasculature (highlighter ink circulated by injection in a blood vessel, in mpl-magma). Vasculature “lights up” the embryo, including within the developing bones of the limbs. Image taken using a microscope kindly sponsored by Zeiss during the 2018 Embryology Course at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA. By Paul Gerald Layague Sanchez (EMBL Heidelberg)

Magnified view of the aortic and mitral valves in a developing mouse heart. By Matt Stroud (BHF Centre of Excellence, King’s College London)

Cross section through a 36 days human cerebral organoid stained with Ascl1 (red) and Arl13b (green) to reveal a subset of cortical progenitors and the primary cilium projecting into the lumen of the neuroepithelial rosette, respectively. Nuclei are counterstained with DAPI. By Thomas Theil (Centre for Discovery Brain Sciences, The University of Edinburgh)

Gastrulating mouse embryo. Nuclear envelope labelled with LaminB1 (grey). Primitive-streak and ingressing mesoderm labelled with T-Brachyury (magenta). By Darren Wisniewski (MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine The University of Edinburgh)

Regenerating zebrafish heart after cryoinjury. By Srinivas Allanki (Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research)

Larval zebrafish at 6 days post fertilisation registered to a regional neuroanatomical zebrafish atlas. By Dominic Burrows (MRC Centre for Neurodevelopmental Disorders, King’s College London)

Developing gill vasculature in a 120h old zebrafish and also features the heart. This image was taken using lightsheet microscopy in two transgenic lines, one that marks the endothelial actin and the other marks the endothelial nuclei. After acquisition it was processed as a colour coded depth projection. By Philippa Carr (Bateson Centre, University of Sheffield )

Vasculature in a double-transgenic line (Tg(kdrl:HRAS-mCherry)s916, Tg(fli1a:CAAX-eGFP)), visualized using light-sheet fluorescence microscopy.The three individual images are part of a timelapse acquisition, showing 50 hours post fertilization (hpf), 60hpf and 70hpf. Essential processes such as anastomosis (eye and fin), joining of vascular beds (head and spinal cord), and remodelling (subintenstinal vein and duct of Cuvier) can be observed.By Elisabeth Kugler (Department of Infection, Immunity & Cardiovascular Disease,University of Sheffield)

48 hpf zebrafish embryo expressing GFP in sensory neurons and expressing mCherry where the MAP Kinase Kinase Kinase LZK (map3k13) is expressed. LZK is a vertebrate homologue of dlk-1, which is essential for neuronal regeneration in C. elegans and Drosophila. By Hannah Markovic (UCLA)

The image shows the Lateral Line primordium of a zebrafish embryo labeled with a green fluorescent membrane protein. This group of cells migrates together from the head of the animal to the tip of the tail in a journey in which it will form proto-neuromasts or rosettes, which will be later deposited as clusters of cells called ‘neuromasts’. By Joaquin Navajas Acedo (Stowers Institute for Medical Research)

Spinning disc confocal image of mitochondria in the developing zebrafish fin at ~96hpf. By Damian Dalle Nogare ( Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, NIH)

Transgenic zebrafish (Danio rerio) larva expressing red fluorescent protein in the developing mouth and olfactory epithelium. A subset of cells also express a construct that labels actin filament with green fluorescent protein. DAPI (blue) is used to label DNA in the nuclei of all cells. By Oscar Ruiz (Department of Genetics MD Anderson Cancer Center)

Chicken embryo at stage HH9. Picture was taken with an iPhone through the ocular lens of a dissecting stereomicroscope, after injecting the space between the yolk and the embryo with blue pen ink. The ink enables us to see the transparent embryo and highlights the membranes surrounding it as well as some yolk granules. The picture was taken by me at the Embryology Course 2018, Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole – MA.By Andrea Attardi (Max Planck Institute for Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Dresden)

13-day chicken embryo. Diaphanization protocol with Alcian blue and alizarin red. By Felipe Zanghelini Benevenutti (Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brazil)

Scanning electron micrograph of hatchling catshark (Scyliorhinus canicula) dermal denticle (scale). By Rory Cooper (Animal and Plant Sciences University of Sheffield)

Our lab works to understand the regenerative ability of the axolotl salamander, and a key step in understanding how a limb can regenerate is to understand how the limb was initially developed. This image depicts a developing larval axolotl limb bud which has been stained for 3 key developmental genes. The genes shown are: FGF8 (Cyan), SHH (yellow), and PRRX1 (magenta). The method used to stain the genes in this image was fluorescent in situ hybridization, a method for directly labeling the mRNA within a cell. The image was generated using a confocal microscope. By Alexander Lovely (Department of Biology, Northeastern University, Boston)

13-day chicken embryo with diaphanization protocol with Alcian blue and alizarin red. By Daniely Ramos Luz (Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brazil)

My entry for the photo contest is an unhatched sea turtle. I took a picture of this little guy when I was working with sea turtle monitors at the Yawkey Wildlife Center in South Carolina. I helped to monitor the nests and would often find unhatched turtles which failed to resorb their yolk and emerge from the nest. By Catherine May (Boston College)

Early developed chicken embryo (HH9) electroporated in the left side. The electroporated side is detected by a GFP reporter and displayed as green dots on the beautiful chicken embryo. By David Morales Vicente (University of São Paulo, Brazil)

This is Greg. Greg is a 1 month old Austrofundulus limnaeus annual killifish who is the nicest juvenile in my undergraduate research experiment. He likes brine shrimp, blood worms, and would like to have his picture featured on a magazine if possible. Greg is a part of my experiment where I am trying to see if this particular fish species sex ratio is affected by fluctuating temperature patterns. Greg wants you to give him a chance. Trust in Greg. By Motutama Sipelii (Portland State University)

Alligator mississipiensis embryo at stage 13-14 immunostained against Myosin heavy chain showing the developing muscles and (red) and neurofilament labeling axons of nerves. By Daniel Smith Paredes (Department of Geology and Geophysics, Yale University)

Stage 35 chicken embryo, cleared and immunostained for DAPI (orange) and Pax3 (cyan) demonstrating the developing neural crest and spinal cord. Image was taken on the Nikon AZ-C2 macro-confocal with image analysis performed in Imaris. Image was taken in collaboration with Andrea Attardi at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics during the Woods Hole 2018 Embryology course. By Laurel Yohe (Department of Geology and Geophysics, Yale University)

Micrograph shows Drosophila larval brain attached to the leg and eye imaginal discs. There is a glial migration from brain to these discs as indicated by glial cells (shown in red) in the imaginal discs, along with corresponding repo-gal4 driving GFP (glial marker). Glial cells are stained by anti-repo (red), Neural stem cells are marked by anti-Dpn (blue) and glial membranes are marked by repo-gal4::GFP (green). By Asif Ahmad Bakshi (Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics, Hyderabad, India)

The development of the Drosophila lamina neuropil occurs under tight spatiotemporal control that involves a signal relay between photoreceptors (gray), glia (cyan) and lamina precursor cells (magenta). Visualised in my image is a bundle of (joy) photoreceptor axons innervating and signalling to neuroepithelia located at the surface of the optic lobe. With this signal, the neuroepithelia acquire lamina precursor cell identity and form beautifully organised columns. The wrapping glia, in the optic stalk, also receives signalling molecules from the innervating photoreceptors and helps to promote differentiation in lamina precursor cells. Zeiss LSM confocal microscope. By Matthew Bostock (Department of Cell & Developmental Biology, UCL)

Drosophila whole ovary stained for f-actin (Red), nuclei (Cyan) and actin (Green). By Yujun Chen (Kansas State University Division of Biology)

Reproductive organ of a young (1-3 days old) adult Drosophila male. The male reproductive tract consists of a pair of testes, where mature sperm is produced. The sperm is temporarily stored in the seminal vesicles (sv) before being released into the ejaculatory ducts (ED). Here, the sperm is mixed with the seminal fluid produced in the accessory glands (AGs). Ejaculatory bulb (EB) is also visible. The sample expresses nuclear RFP (cyan) driven by the Gal4 driver traffic jam (tj) and it was stained for Actin (magenta) and the germline stem cell marker vasa (green). Image was acquired at the Wolfson Bioimaging Facility (University of Bristol). Scale Bar: 200 um. By Giuliana Clemente (University of Bristol)

Drosophila notum as the sensory organ precursors undergo their first division, seemingly shooting across the field. Partner of Numb ( PoN) is shown in green and microtubules (as reported by Jupiter) in Magenta. The picture is color blind friendly! By Louise Couton (Department of Biochemistry, University of Geneva)

A neuroepithelium called the ‘outer proliferation centre’ (OPC) together with the eye disc epithelium (top right) are shown in Cyan. The OPC is a broad crescent shaped structure that generates neurons of the lamina and medulla neuropils. All glia are shown in magenta. They are present in the eye disc, through the optic stalk and in the optic lobe. By The Fernandes Lab (Department of Cell & Developmental Biology, UCL)

The image is a lightsheet micrograph of a Drosophila undergoing the final stages of development(~24hrs prior to ecclosion). The anterior half of the developing fly has been dissected out from the pupal case. The posterior pupal case can still be seen in the upper part of the image. The fluorescent marker is DE-cadherin- lining apical junctions of cells. There is a surreal resemblance to a developing human foetus during its late stages- when all the major morphological development is complete. Although, the individual seems suspended in time and space, there are major internal structures still developing. By Suhrid Ghosh (Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Dresden)

Drosophila melanogaster ovary 24 hours after pupal formation stained for Lamin-C and Fasciclin III (in red), VASA (green), Traffic Jam (white), and DAPI (blue). By Lena Kogan (Biological Sciences Department, Columbia University NY)

Drosophila melanogaster pupa expressing a histone marker. It was imaged on our MultiView Light-Sheet Microscope (MuVi-SPIM) at 10x magnification. By Dimitri Kromm (EMBL Heidelberg)

Combined single molecule Fluorescent in situ hybridisation and immunofluorescence of developing Drosophila larval brain. Shown here are Syncrip protein (green), syncrip RNA (red) and DNA (blue). By Jeff Lee (Dept. of Biochemistry, University of Oxford)

Drosophila mutant showing a decreased eye size compared to wild type. This line is not able to generate descendants with wild type flies. By Marisa Merino (Department of Biochemistry, University of Geneva)

Live embryo of the beetle Tribolium castaneum. During early development, this egg was injected with mRNA encoding a photoconvertible fluorescent protein that is localised to nuclei. Several nuclei were then irradiated with short-wavelength light to induce a conformational change in the fluorescent protein, thereby causing it to fluoresce in a different wavelength (shown here in magenta rather than the unconverted cyan). This strategy allows the targeted labeling of one or more cells and the tracing of those cells and their descendents throughout development. In this case, I labeled a group of cells came to form part of an extraembryonic tissue that covers the embryo and supports its development. By Matt Benton (Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge)

Developing oocytes (red) in the marine cnidarian Hydractinia symbiolongicarpus enclosed in sporosacs – cell boundaries are in green and nuclear staining in blue. By Eleni Chrysostomou (Centre for Chromosome Biology & Regenerative Medicine Institute, National University of Ireland Galway

Embryonic development of the ascidian Phallusia mammillata. 3D rendering of membrane imaging with light-sheet microscopy covering the zygote, cleavage, gastrulation, neurulation, tailbud and larval stages. By Ulla-Maj Fiuza (EMBL Heidelberg)

Small worm of Platynereis dumerilii (annelid) with dividing cells, in the brain and the posterior part, labelled in green (EdU incorporation and chase). By Eve Gazave (Institut Jacques Monod, Paris)

My picture is of an interesting and uncommon animal: a larva of the colonial tunicate Symplegma rubra, after metamorphosis. The five projections are the ampullae, the first structures of the blood vessels. In the center, there is the oozooid, during organogensis. Some larval organs are seen, such as the ocellus (red circular structure). I observed this larva in the marine station Cebimar (Centro de Biologia Marinha da Universidade de São Paulo). By Stefania Gutiérrez (University of São Paulo, Brazil)

Tardigrade embryo (Hypsibius exemplaris) with membranes and mitochondria labeled. By Kira Heikes (UNC Chapel Hill.)

Live Hawaiian Bobtail Squid (Euprymna scolopes), stained with vital dyes (CellMask, LysoTracker and Hoechst) to understand its cellular and sub-cellular organisation during development. Blue is labelling cellular nuclei, green – cell plasma membranes and red – lysosomes that are important for cellular waste removal. This species is a candidate model organism that yet holds many answers to developmental biology questions, such as nervous system and eye development. The image was taken during the MBL 2018 Embryology Course with the confocal microscope provided by Zeiss. Animals were supplied by the cephalopod researcher Carrie Albertin. By Martyna Lukoseviciute (Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Oxford)

Squid embryo (Doryteuthis pealeii) with nuclei (pink), actin (cyan) and neurons (green). By Tessa Montague (Zuckerman Institute, Columbia University NY)

DIC and fluorescence image of Hydractinia male sexual (left) and feeding polyps (right) on a chitin bed. Chitin is shown in green. Noncycling cells probed with cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor (CDKI) are shown in yellow, which are mainly in nematocytes, male gonophore, and gastrodermis. By Indu Patwal (Centre for Chromosome Biology, National University of Ireland Galway)

Ctenophore gastrula. Cyan: DAPI; Yellow: tubulin. By Miguel Salinas-Saavedra (Centre for Chromosome Biology, National University of Ireland Galway)

Surface view of an embryo of the brachiopod Novocrania anomala during early gastrulation. Image shows the cell membrane outlines in the ectodermal surface as stained by BODIPY-FL (F-actin staining). Animal pole is top and vegetal pole is bottom where the blastoporal opening is visible. Adults were collected in 60 meter depth waters near Storingavika in Bergen, Norway, spawned and fertilized in the laboratory. Image is a maximum intensity projection of the original stack taken on a Leica SP5 confocal microscope. By Bruno Vellutini (Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, dresden)

Transverse section of an Arabidopsis hypocotyl with disrupted vascular organisation. By Peter Etchells (Durham University)

3D TEM reconstruction of the colonial choanoflagellate Salpingoeca rosetta. Choanoflagellates are the closest unicellular relatives to the animal kingdom and some species such as S. rosetta are capable of developing into multicellular colonies. This makes S. rosetta a powerful model to investigate the development, origin and evolution of animal multicellularity. Shown are apical vesicles (pink), food vacuoles (green), endocytotic vacuoles (fuschia), ER (yellow), extracellular vesicles (grey), filopodia (external, purple), flagellar basal body (light blue), flagellum (dark green), glycogen storage (white), Golgi apparatus and vesicles (purple), intercellular bridges (external, yellow; septa, red), large vesicles (brown), microvillar collar (light orange), mitochondria (red), nonflagellar basal body (dark orange), and nuclei (dark blue). By Davis Laundon (The Marine Biological Association, Plymouth UK)

An Arabidopsis inflorescence expressing a fluorescent reporter for the APETALA3 gene, which promotes petal and stamen identity (green). Cell walls were stained with rpopidium iodide (magenta). By Nathanaël Prunet (Department of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology, UCLA)

Development of the three-cell asexual spore of the rice blast fungus. The spore starts as a swelling of the aerial hypha, changing from a sphere, to a symmetrical oval two cell stage and finally transforming into the spindle shaped spore seen at the end of the montage. By Hiral Shah (Bharat Chattoo Genome Research Centre The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda Gujarat India)

Root of Medicago truncatula treated with auxin transport inhibitors, known to induce structures similar to symbiotic nodules. By Ioannis Tamvakis (Sainsbury Laboratory University of Cambridge)

The development of a lateral root in Arabidopsis thaliana. The sample has been cleared and stained with Calcofluor White to outline the cell walls and the green fluorescent nuclei represent a protein expressed specifically in the outer cell layer of developing lateral root. By Robertas Ursache (University of Lausanne, Switzerland)

Cross section through a developing fruit (carpel) of Austrobaileya scandens. The photograph was taken with a light microscope under 10X magnification and stained with safranin and alcian blue to have a better tissue contrast. The fruit of A. scadens is formed by multiple individual carpels, here we are looking at one of those that is going to grow fleshy in order to disperse the seed. By Cecilia Zumajo-Cardona (City University of New York, New York Botanical Garden)

A single amino acid, a dot ( . ), becomes a chain of amino acids – a protein, a line (——), moves in space to become a plane, then a volume. Like in drawing, a dot progresses to a line, to meander in space. So it seems that drawing might be an appropriate way to experiment, to ‘be like’ the protein. Proteins pervade life and collectively they take an infinite variety of forms. Protein’s fold, most of the time this is what a protein is trying to do. The folded protein is the relaxed protein, in its ‘natural’ state, not wasting any energy. Folding is a process, it happens through time, in an ‘energy landscape’ often imagined to be conical (cone shaped) with the folded protein resting in the very bottom – the point of least energy in the landscape. As the protein moves from the top of this landscape to the bottom (it might not make it) it embarks on an explorative journey of the space; body and environment continuously co-creating each other. There are fast and slow tracks, uphills and downhills, dead-ends and if in trouble then a ‘chaperone’ will come to help find the way together. This dynamic process is hard to imagine and the images you find in scientific textbooks don’t exactly give the game away (generally a cone, a few uphills or downhills). How else can we imagine this complexity? What other images could we see? After making countless drawings with molecular biologist JJ Phillips, we take a day to look at them all together: drawings of cones, of simple figures moving in cones, colour coding energy levels, line drawings of movement series, planes in space. It struck me that the bottom of the cone is like the centre of a maze. We like the idea. We try drawing a maze. First we need an underlying grid architecture, not a generic pattern but one that is true to the dynamic pattern of the protein journeying. We change the granularity of the grid for different stages of the process. Colour brings dimensions and guides the pathways that are created. The environment and the body co-create one another as the maze undermines the distinction between figuration and abstraction. The drawing process has its own stochasticity and the image, following its own creative process, reveals something true of the dynamic pattern of protein folding. The idiosyncrasies of this living process have informed and given rise to a new artistic process. ‘Organic development in a work of art is at least analogous to, and probably identical with, organic development in nature; in an organic-artistic scheme the essence of art is in processes rather than its products; and such artistic ‘events’ as are thrown up are significant merely in that they reflect past, present and future aspects of the dominant process’. (Thistlewood, 1981). By Gemma Anderson (University of Exeter and Falmouth School of Art, http://www.gemma-anderson.co.uk/)

These are three hand-crafted coasters, made from perler beads. They represent pictures of three classic developmental biology model organisms, the fruitfly Drosophila melanogaster, a hatching chick Gallus gallus domesticus, and the flower of Arabidopsis thaliana. Pertinent to their natural habitat, the fruitfully is shown in a blue background representing its flight in the sky, the chick is shown in a green background representing the grass it forages and the flower is shown in a brown background representing the soil it grows in. These were created by me for use by any artsy developmental biologist who can use this during coffee breaks in lab. By Sumbul Jawed Khan (Sci-Illustrate and https://www.linkedin.com/in/sumbul-jawed-khan/)

This drawing illustrates the remarkable self-organization capacity of cerebral organoids that allows them to recapitulate human brain development in vitro. Each color represents a different type of cell, and the dorsal and ventral areas are separated by a defined boundary – like a yin and yang symbolizing the balance between distinct but complementary entities. By Beata Edyta Mierzwa (Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and the University of California, San Diego, and www.beatascienceart.com)

The image depicts different views (cranial, ventral, dorsal, right, caudal and left) of a digital 3D model of the embryonic human heart at Carnegie stage 12. The model is based on work from Antoon Moorman’s group at the Academic Medical Centre in Amsterdam. My model is an example of scientific illustration, and is not volume-reconstructed from histological sections, confocal images or micro-CT data. By Kalin Narov (Embryo Safari, https://www.embryosafari.com/)

This drawing combines embryos and structures from embryos. Featuring: Bats, Drosophila, Xenopus, Parhyale, Ascidians, Chicken. By B. Duygu Özpolat (Eugene Bell Center for Regenerative Biology and Tissue Engineering, Marine Biological Laboratory Woods Hole)