Anna Pilatone and Gabriella Milan won the Endocrine Society’s 2026 Endocrine Images Art Competition for their microscopy image of a pre-adipocyte cell (left).
Pilatone and Milan are research biologists in the Endocrine and Metabolic Lab at the Department of Medicine, University of Padova, and at the Center for the Study and Integrated Treatment of Obesity, University Hospital of Padova in Padova, Italy.
The art competition celebrates the beauty of endocrine science as seen through the lens of a microscope. This year’s 29 entries were judged by a panel of Society members who based their assessments on the aesthetic value of the images and their significance to endocrine research.
Pilatone and Milan’s entry is titled “Pre-adipocyte Intriguing Scaffold.” Adipose tissue, initially described simply as body fat, has been recognized as a very complex endocrine organ characterized by different depots and composed of many cell types, including white, brown, and beige adipocytes. Dysregulation of these cells causes pathological adipose tissue expansion, leading to obesity and metabolic complications such as diabetes and metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease.
The immunofluorescence image depicts the cellular architecture of a murine pre-adipocyte used in a project aimed at investigating the role of the protein kinase CK2 in adipose tissue biology. The green cytoskeletal actin filaments and the red collagen fibers around the blue nuclei paint the fascinating complexity of the pre-adipocyte scaffold involved in the adipogenic differentiation process.
One member of the grand prize-winning team will receive complimentary registration to the Society’s annual meeting, ENDO.
Two other winners also were announced in this year’s competition.
The second-place winner is the team of Antonio Fernandes de Oliveira Filho, MD, and João Batista Guedes of the University of Sao Paulo – USP and Federal University of Campina Grande (UFCG) in Campina Grande, Paraíba, Brazil. Their image (left) features a rare fatty tumor known as a liposarcoma in the adrenal gland. Retroperitoneal liposarcomas are often aggressive and may present to the endocrinologist as an adrenocortical carcinoma.
The third-place winner is Luis Cedeño-Rosario, PhD, of the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah. Cedeño-Rosario submitted an image of the mitochondria in the kidney’s proximal tubular epithelial cells (right).
All three winners will have their art displayed at ENDO 2026 from June 13-16 in Chicago, Ill. The display will be seen by thousands of endocrine scientists and researchers from all over the world.
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.
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