reNEW CEO Professor Melissa Little has been awarded Research Australia’s Peter Wills Medal at Research Australia’s 2026 Health and Medical Research Awards in Sydney.
Congratulations to Dr Declan Turner, postdoctoral researcher from the Werder lab, at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Stem Cell Medicine, reNEW Melbourne in Australia for winning first prize in the third annual reNEW ARTxSCIENCE Competition. The winning entry was up against 60 competitors and was unanimously selected by an esteemed international jury and announced on Stem Cell Awareness Day October 8.
Members of the jury agreed that, “It was really hard for us this year to select a winner. The quality of the submissions is getting better and better. The winning submission had a striking and unexpected image which we have not seen coming from the stem cell world before. Do we really carry this beauty inside our bodies? The image has a very delicate artistic look and displays our human fragility. It inspires us to take a breath and reflect on the vulnerabilities not only within our own lungs but also the natural ecosystems that this image evokes. We believe the submission will attract both the public and people from the science world to be inspired and learn more about the story behind the science. We therefore believe that the winner has great potential to raise awareness about stem cells and how stem cell research can help transform lives.”
The international jury consists of Dr. Insoo Hyun, Museum of Science Boston in the US, Christel Schollaardt, Science Manager at Museum Boerhaave, Leiden in the Netherlands, Vice President Tanja Xenia Pedersen at Novo Nordisk Foundation in Denmark and Bern Hall, Curator at Science Gallery Melbourne at the University of Melbourne, Australia.
“Scientific inquiry advances knowledge, yet it can also uncover unexpected beauty — a powerful reminder that science has the capacity to inspire as much as it informs”, said Declan when receiving the trophy.
“I’m really delighted to be the 2025 AXS Competition winner”
“The reNEW ARTxSCIENCE competition has for the third year again proven to be a huge success and has reached general public far more than expected which is a key goal for us. We will continue to hold the competition on an annual basis and try to develop it even more to raise awareness of how stem cell research may transform the lives of people”, says CEO and Professor Melissa H. Little, Novo Nordisk Foundation of Stem Cell Medicine, reNEW.
The winning image is titled: Take a Deep Breath.
Respiratory infections are a leading cause of death globally and a major economic burden. The airway epithelial layer lining your nose and windpipe is your body’s first line of defence – a complex barrier of specialised cells, each with distinct structures and function, that are constantly exposed to inhaled microbes. The reNEW research aims to understand how these cells resist and respond to infections, which determines whether you stay healthy or develop severe disease. What you see in the image are airway epithelial cells that have been maintained in an air-liquid interface culture for 110 days. A sea of hair-like cilia which beats tirelessly in coordinated waves, sweeping the protective mucus layer up the airway to remove entrapped pathogens.
The reNEW ARTxSCIENCE Competition, first established in 2023 by the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Stem Cell Medicine, reNEW is a celebration of Stem Cell Awareness Day. The competition aims to highlight the incredible potential of stem cell research by blending art and science and hopefully raising awareness of stem cells and their transformative capabilities.
The competition attracted an impressive 60 entries from the three reNEW Nodes in Copenhagen, Leiden, and Melbourne.
Participants were asked to select a stem cell image for their research, accompanied by a well written and easy to understand story that explains their research to the public. The entries were posted on social media to reach the public, who were then asked to vote for the entry they felt best conveyed the story behind the image. The top 12 finalists were presented to the international jury who selected the overall winner. The first prize also includes a cheque of 5000 euro and will feature on the front cover of the reNEW annual report.
The ARTxSCIENCE Competition 2025 will for the second year have a global travelling exhibition of the finalists and may be viewed for the first time at the public space at Panum at the University of Copenhagen from October 8. The exhibition will also visit Australia, Denmark, The Netherlands and the USA.
See all the beautiful submissions and read about the incredible power of stem cells and their potential to transform the lives of people https://renew.science/artxscience/
