The Gold Award was presented to a group from Kraków (Poland) for their characterization of the development of adipocytes. There are different protocols for obtaining model adipocytes from stem cells that are used for the investigation of obesity and adipose tissue. The authors used Raman and fluorescence imaging to characterize the maturation of adipocytes, and 2D/3D Raman microscopy. The study reveals the limitations of existing model systems and that the chosen protocols can impact the experimental results. These findings are relevant for metabolic studies and applications of tissue engineering.

A collaboration from France received the Silver Award for a study of the biomineralization process of abalone shells. The authors investigated the spatial distribution of the calcium-containing polymorphs aragonite and calcite in abalone shells with Raman imaging and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The understanding of how biomaterials are produced may inspire the development of new materials for technological applications.

The Paper Award Bronze recognizes the development of shapeshifting planar optical elements by a group from Naples. The authors created planar diffractive optical elements such as lenses and gratings using a photo-responsive polymer that can be shaped into a desired morphology by incident light. The morphology defines the devices’ optical properties and was verified by atomic force and scanning electron microscopy.

The WITec Paper Award 2024 is now open for submissions. Articles are eligible if they were published in 2023 (in print or online) in a peer-reviewed journal and contain results obtained with a WITec instrument. Publications should be sent as a PDF to papers@WITec.de before January 31, 2024.