Honorable Mention: Greasy Brain

Photography by Qi Zhang, Ph.D., associate professor,
Charles E. Schmidt of Science

The brain disproportionally possesses a large amount of cholesterol (4% body weight vs. 25% body cholesterol). This is a testimony to cholesterol's criticality in brain cell function and survival. In this picture of a mouse brain slice, two major types of cells, neurons and glial cells, are visualized by blue and green fluorescence. The master cholesterol regulator, SREBP2, is marked by red fluorescence. Together, they give us a bird's-eye view of brain cholesterol distribution and regulation.