The WITec Paper Award Gold winner Dr Vernon LaLone (left image). Professor Dame Molly Stevens receives the Award from Oxford Instruments representative Stephen McGurk at the University of Oxford (right image) on behalf of her research group, previously of the Imperial College London, UK.
The Paper Award Bronze winners received their certificates. Left picture: Dr Michael Neumann (right) with Oxford Instruments’ Stefan Gomes da Costa; Right picture, from left to right: Professor Young Hee Lee, shared first author Dr Xu Wei, group member Debottom Daw and Oxford Instruments representative James Kim at the Center for Integrated Nanostructure Physics, Sungkyunkwan University in Suwon, Republic of Korea.
Robin van der Meijden (middle) and his co-authors Professor Nico Sommerdijk (left) and Dr Anat Akiva (right) from the Radboud University Medical Center in Nijmegen presenting their Paper Award Silver.

WITec Honours 2024 Paper Award winners from the UK, Netherlands, and South Korea

Sep 02 2024

WITec has honoured researchers from Great Britain, the Netherlands, and South Korea with its 2024 Paper Awards for their remarkable contributions to cellular biology, biomineralisation, and single-photon emitting materials. These awards highlight the outstanding work conducted using WITec microscopes, and Oxford Instruments WITec congratulates the winners while thanking all participants. The jury anticipates more exceptional submissions for the 2025 awards.

GOLD: Vernon LaLone, Aleksandra Aizenshtadt, John Goertz, Steven Ray Wilson, Stefan Krauss, Molly M. Stevens (2023). Their study on 3D liver organoids at Imperial College London showcased how Raman spectral imaging can quantitatively analyse complex 3D biological structures. This method efficiently detects compounds challenging to visualise with traditional staining techniques, revealing differences between primary and stem-cell-derived organoids, and tracking drug metabolisation within tissues.

SILVER: Robin H.M. van der Meijden and his team at Radboud University Medical Center, Netherlands, received this award for their work on bone biomineralisation. They demonstrated that the structure and composition of the extracellular matrix (ECM), rather than cellular activity, guide mineral infiltration into bone tissue. Their cell-free in vitro system offered new insights into bone formation and the potential for studying mineralisation-related diseases.

BRONZE: Michael Neumann, Xu Wei, and colleagues at Sungkyunkwan University, South Korea, won for their research on hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) in quantum optics. Their findings revealed that many single-photon emitters (SPEs) in hBN result from organic residues, not the hBN crystal lattice, shifting the focus towards the rational selection of fluorophores for quantum photonic technologies.

The WITec Paper Award 2025 is now open for submissions. Articles published in 2024 that include data acquired with a WITec instrument are eligible. Submissions should be sent as PDFs to papers@WITec.de by 31 January 2025, for a chance to win.

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