iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Lavinia Sheets @olybinewski.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

TFW your Spotify 80s playlist includes the 1880s 🙃

A portrait of young, hot Gustav Mahler, taken in the late 1880s or early 1890s, as the cover for an “80s Mix” of music on Spotify

Lavinia Sheets @olybinewski.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

My dept. posted this on the other site and it’s not getting any ♥️, so I’m posting it here 🦋 Excited to work with lead PI Artur Indzhykulian (Harvard/MEE) and co-I Marcos Sotomayor (University of Chicago) on this important study & grateful to the Ushers Syndrome Society @washumedicine.bsky.social

Photo of Lavinia Sheets in a zebrafish facility, backlit and holding a tank of zebrafish, with a note that she has been awarded a collaborative grant from the Usher Syndrome Society to test Mini-Cdh23 gene therapy for Usher’s Syndrome Type 1D in the zebrafish model.

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Lavinia Sheets @olybinewski.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

Same here with our dracula fish babies 😆

Danionella dracula embryos in a Petri dish

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Lavinia Sheets @olybinewski.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

Happy Return of the Living Dead day to all who celebrate🧟‍♂️ 🧠🧟‍♀️

Opening shot in the movie "Return of the Living Dead" shows the front of a concrete building in the daylight with a large sign on the roof that says "UNEEDA Medical Supply, You need it - we got it, none larger".

Overlayed on the the scene is the text "July 3, 1984, 5:30 pm, Eastern Daylight Time"

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Lavinia Sheets @olybinewski.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

My kiddo felted the best Mother’s Day gift ever 🥰

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Lavinia Sheets @olybinewski.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

Fig. 1 Gen Z selfie ☺️ Fig. 2 Gen X attempt at Gen Z selfie 😭 #ARO2026 #AROMWM2026 🇵🇷

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Lavinia Sheets @olybinewski.bsky.social · 14/12/2025

Celebrating another year of amazing research with this great team 🎄 ❄️

A festive group of auditory researchers standing next to a Christmas tree following a winter holiday party

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Lavinia Sheets @olybinewski.bsky.social · 29/09/2025

Seeing some upsetting pics of downtown Chicago this evening 🙁 I was just there yesterday after college visits with my kiddo—crowds of people enjoying the beautiful weather in Millennium Park during the day and vibing on the waterfront at night ✨

Cloud gate sculpture (the bean) in Millennium Park, Chicago, Illinois

View of the Chicago skyline from the Lurie Garden

The Chicago skyline from the waterfront at night

Two people look out over the Chicago river at the city at night

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Lavinia Sheets @olybinewski.bsky.social · 28/07/2025

I would say happy belated, but every day is caturday 😺

A voluptuous orange cat smugly leaning against a red pillow on a teal couch with one paw next to his head and the other paw under his chin. The evening sun crates diffuse light behind him through sheer colorful drapes. The cat’s given name is Twist, but we call him Boobachech.

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Lavinia Sheets @olybinewski.bsky.social · 13/07/2025

So long, and thanks for all the fish 🐟 (and cheese 🧀) #IZFC2025

The Memorial Union at Univeristy of Wisconsin

Selfie of five WashU scientists smiling and waiting for their dinner

The Capital Building in Madison Wisconsin at night

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Lavinia Sheets @olybinewski.bsky.social · 12/07/2025

Permanent hearing loss and tinnitus are frequent side effects of cisplatin chemotherapy 👂 Strategies to prevent hearing loss focus on protecting sensory hair cells from cisplatin induced death. ☠️ But are surviving hair cells really ok? Spoiler- no, they’re not! 🤕 Come see Poster #55 #IZFC2025

Neva Bergemann presenting a poster on cisplatin ototoxicity at the International Zebrafish Meeting

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Lavinia Sheets @olybinewski.bsky.social · 12/07/2025

Ever wonder why lateral line neuromasts without mechanotransduction have fewer hair cells? 🧐 Curious about how larval fish swim in a tiny infinity pool without a functional lateral line? 🌊 Come to poster 36 and find out! #IZFC2025

Keziah Khue-Nguyen presenting her poster at the International Zebrafish Meeting

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Lavinia Sheets @olybinewski.bsky.social · 11/07/2025

Want to learn about the development of the zebrafish lateral line ganglia & see some spectacularly beautiful images? Come to Poster #55 now! #IZFC2025

Tara Cerny next to her poster on the development t of the zebrafish lateral line ganglia

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Lavinia Sheets @olybinewski.bsky.social · 01/07/2025

Good lab news! Very proud of resident postdoc Prith Roychowdhury, who won a Michael Paparella Resident Research Award for his presentation at the WashU Med ENT 2025 Ogura Lectureship and Resident Research Day 😄🎉 His research uses zebrafish to model excitotoxic injury of auditory nerves 🐟👂

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Lavinia Sheets @olybinewski.bsky.social · 25/05/2025

in these times of stress & uncertainty, we need to find cheer & comfort where we can ✨ today, mine is a martini with a twist made with Mr. Pickles🍸

A beautiful aquamarine 750 ml bottle of gin with a picture of an American Pitbull Terrier surrounded by flowers. The bottle label says "Mr. Pickles Pacific Northwest Gin".

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Lavinia Sheets @olybinewski.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

They're here!! 😆🎉 Huge thanks to Jon Perelmuter and the Bass Lab at Cornell for sharing Danionella dracula fish with us 🐟 Looking forward to launching some exciting new research with these little fishies & @socobod.bsky.social

AI generated image of tiny dracula fish singing

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Lavinia Sheets @olybinewski.bsky.social · 04/05/2025

#Bloomscrolling It’s peak time for iris blooms 😍@mobotgarden.bsky.social

Dark purple iris bloom adjacent to yellow buds with trees and grass in the background.

White and purple irises with a gravel path in the background.

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Lavinia Sheets @olybinewski.bsky.social · 02/05/2025

#FluorescenceFriday fun 😄 Inverted image of developing posterior lateral line ganglion in a 6-day-old zebrafish - note the green cluster of proliferating progenitor cells on the ventral side of the ganglion 💚 🐟

Confocal microscopy image of developing posterior lateral line ganglion in a 6-day-old zebrafish. Neurons are shown in magenta, proliferating cells labeled with EdU are shown in green.

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Lavinia Sheets @olybinewski.bsky.social · 10/03/2025

today they're subtle, but sparkly 💅🌟

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Lavinia Sheets @olybinewski.bsky.social · 06/03/2025

#ThrowbackThursday - me as a grad student trainee presenting my very first scientific poster at the @ascbiology.bsky.social meeting many years ago ⏳ For the future of our trainees, I'll be in Jeff City tomorrow #StandUpForScience

A graduate student standing next to poster describing how zebrafish pigment cells can be used to understand how intracellular cargo transport is regulated

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Lavinia Sheets @olybinewski.bsky.social · 02/03/2025

Post a picture of you that’s not actually a picture of you.

Still of the character Iona, a record store manager, from the the movie Pretty in Pink. She looks punk and annoyed talking on a landline phone.

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Lavinia Sheets @olybinewski.bsky.social · 23/02/2025

Hungry for some donuts 🍩? Come to poster #77 😋 #ARO2025

Poster at the ARO midwinter meeting entitled “Mitochondrial donuts: a hot and ready mitochondrial defense mechanism?”

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Lavinia Sheets @olybinewski.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

#FluorescenceFriday Happy Valentine's Day 💐 Grateful for all my amazing scientific colleagues and community ❤️

Dissociated zebrafish purple neuromast hair cells and green innervating nerves with red ribbon synapses that looks a little like flowers.

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Lavinia Sheets @olybinewski.bsky.social · 07/02/2025

#FluorescenceFriday Super-resolution images of mitochondria & nuclei in damaged and dying sensory hair cells following treatment with the chemo drug cisplatin👂🐟⚕️ Image acquired by in my lab by Amherst College undergrad Elayna Malak from Josef Trapani's lab 🧠 Yay to collabs with PUIs! 🎉

Larval zebrafish neuromast hair cells damaged following cisplatin treatment. Mitochondria are green and blue, hair cell nuclei are magenta.

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Lavinia Sheets @olybinewski.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

Bertha's got some sweet bling 🌈

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Lavinia Sheets @olybinewski.bsky.social · 24/01/2025

Super resolution confocal image of a lateral line neuromast in a 5-day-old zebrafish 🐟 The green dots are amazing specialized presynaptic structures called synaptic ribbons 🎀 Hair cell actin labeled in orange, acetylated tubulin in neurons & hair cells labeled in purple #FluorescenceFriday

Super resolution confocal image of a lateral line neuromast in a 5-day-old zebrafish - it looks like an orange and purple flower with green dots

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Lavinia Sheets @olybinewski.bsky.social · 10/01/2025

#FluorescenceFriday 5-day-old larval zebrafish with GFP in the eye and afferent nerves of the lateral line organs, synaptic vesicles in hair cells labeled in magenta 💚💜 Transgenic fish were generated by the Kawakami Group: ztrap.nig.ac.jp/ztrap/faces/...

5-day-old larval zebrafish with GFP in the eye and afferent nerves of the lateral line organs, synaptic vesicles in hair cells labeled in magenta

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Lavinia Sheets @olybinewski.bsky.social · 06/01/2025

Today we need more snowday cat cuddles in the feed ❄️ #snowstorm2025

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Lavinia Sheets @olybinewski.bsky.social · 20/12/2024

#FluorescenceFriday Live image of green macrophages in a 6-day-old zebrafish responding to dying sensory hair cells following treatment with the chemotherapy drug cisplatin 👂🐟⚕️

Live image of green macrophages in a 6-day-old zebrafish responding to dying magenta hair cells following treatment with the chemotherapy drug cisplatin.

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Lavinia Sheets @olybinewski.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

Excited to present our research (including some very preliminary data!) at the University of Iowa Dept. of Biology tomorrow 🐟👂⚡

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Lavinia Sheets @olybinewski.bsky.social · 06/12/2024

#FluorescenceFriday My old @dev-journal.bsky.social cover image, improved to be color vision deficiency friendly! Side view of a zebrafish neuromast - acetylated tubulin in green and synaptic ribbons in magenta 💚💜

Side view of a zebrafish neuromast - acetylated tubulin in green and synaptic ribbons in magenta

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