Newswise — WASHINGTON—The Endocrine Society is delighted to announce that Lily Ng, PhD, and Douglas Forrest, Ph.D., have won the Society's 2024 Endocrine Images Art Competition for their image of the astrocyte cell that expresses type 2 deiodinase.  

Now in its third year, the Art Competition celebrates the beauty of endocrine science as seen through the lens of a microscope. This year’s 19 entries were judged by a panel of Society members who based their assessments on aesthetic value of the images and their significance to endocrine research.

Ng and Forrest work at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), which is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland. Ng is a Staff Scientist, and Forrest is Chief of the Nuclear Receptor Biology Section at NIDDK.

In submitting their image to the competition, the two noted that one of the most important functions of thyroid hormone is to promote the development of the brain. Deiodinase enzymes in the brain can modify the level of active thyroid hormone available for neurons. The image shows an astrocyte cell that expresses type 2 deiodinase, a thyroid hormone-amplifying enzyme. The astrocyte projects an extensive network of fibers for signaling to neighboring cells.

One member of the grand prize-winning team will receive complimentary registration to the Society’s annual meeting.

Two other winners also were announced in this year’s competition. 

The second-place winner is the team of Federico Salas-Lucia, Ph.D., and Sergio Escamilla, M.Sc., Ph.D. candidate, of the University of Chicago in Chicago, Ill., for an image of the mechanisms of thyroid hormone action in brain organoids. 

The third-place winner is Celeste Laporte, H.B.Sc., of McGill University in Montreal, Canada, for an image of vasopressin neurons in the rat paraventricular nucleus.

All three winners will have their art displayed at ENDO 2024, the Society’s annual meeting, from June 1-4 in Boston, Mass. The display will be seen by thousands of endocrine scientists and researchers from all over the world. Their work also will be featured in the Society’s magazine Endocrine News, on our website and on social media. 

Visit the Endocrine Images Art Competition website for more information and to view this year’s top endocrine images along with previous year’s winners.

# # #

Endocrinologists are at the core of solving the most pressing health problems of our time, from diabetes and obesity to infertility, bone health, and hormone-related cancers. The Endocrine Society is the world’s oldest and largest organization of scientists devoted to hormone research and physicians who care for people with hormone-related conditions. 

The Society has more than 18,000 members, including scientists, physicians, educators, nurses and students in 122 countries. To learn more about the Society and the field of endocrinology, visit our site at www.endocrine.org. Follow us on Twitter at @TheEndoSociety and @EndoMedia.