Wellcome Image Awards 2012 celebrates the most informative, striking and technically excellent images acquired by the Wellcome Images picture library in the past eighteen months. This year’s winners have used techniques ranging from medical photography to scanning electron microscopy encompassing a breadth of topics across medicine and the life sciences.

From a beautiful confocal micrograph of a bacterial biofilm, to a photograph of open cardiothoracic surgery, the sixteen winning images showcase the quality and diversity of images available for public use through the Wellcome Library’s image repository, Wellcome Images.

Each image has been carefully selected by a panel of judges including Fergus Walsh (Medical correspondent for the BBC), Alice Roberts (anatomist and science broadcaster), Adam Rutherford (science writer and presenter) and Eric Hilaire (Picture Editor at The Guardian).

Visit the Wellcome Image Awards website.