Kevin Forsberg
@kvnforsberg.bsky.social
970 followers 640 following 42 posts
Assistant Professor, Department of Microbiology, UT Southwestern. Posts are my own. Lab Website: forsberglab.org Banner Art: Tamanash Bhattacharya
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kvnforsberg.bsky.social
Very proud to have our lab’s first work published in @cp-cellhostmicrobe.bsky.social!

In this work, we use functional metagenomics to find phage defenses from human and soil microbiomes!

Congrats to first author @luis840alberto.bsky.social !

www.cell.com/cell-host-mi...

(1/3)
kvnforsberg.bsky.social
Agreed. A great game, but heart-wrenching ending.
kvnforsberg.bsky.social
That ball caromed off a Bucs DL's helmet too (despite remaining a perfect spiral). Not sure how much of that I'd hold against Darnold.
Reposted by Kevin Forsberg
markjmandel.bsky.social
Join us on Friday at noon for a great seminar from Tera Levin @teralevin.bsky.social! @uwmadisonmmi.bsky.social
Announcement: Medical Microbiology & Immunology Seminar Series, September 26, 12:00 pm, MSB 1520. "The Evolution of Immunity and Pathogenesis within Environmental Microbial Battlegrounds". Dr. Tera Levin, University of Pittsburgh.
kvnforsberg.bsky.social
Great pun but sadly inaccurate (I liked it so much I read the methods section). Unfortunately, no Kelp chloroplasts were stolen in the making of this mind-melting manuscript.
kvnforsberg.bsky.social
Come be my colleague!

I've been very happy at UTSW Micro. Why?

Its a supportive environment full of excellent people. There's strong ambition, reflexive empathy, and excellent resources.
jkpfeiff.bsky.social
Faculty search announcement 2025: Tenure-Track Assistant Professor in Microbiology at UT Southwestern. We seek candidates working in microbial pathogenesis (some preference may be given to bacterial pathogens). Come join our community! (1/5) www.utsouthwestern.edu/departments/...
Department members sit at a very long table in the hallway eating a pre-Thanksgiving potluck feast.
kvnforsberg.bsky.social
Thanks, and good luck!
kvnforsberg.bsky.social
I suspect there may have options to avoid the open access fee or that allowed me to upload the author-accepted manuscript to PMC.

But I am a *cliché* assistant professor that wanted (and still want) no unnecessary enemies. I played it safe.
kvnforsberg.bsky.social
I ❤️ open access so was always planning to pay the OA fee. If I had less (flexible) money or hadn’t been proactive and persistent with my emails, it would have been very easy to fall out of compliance.

I expect/hope that the path to compliance will become easier (and cheaper) in the months to come.
kvnforsberg.bsky.social
Everyone I emailed at Elsevier and the NIH were nothing but polite and – to the extent they could be – helpful.

As things stand, however, full compliance with both parties is tricky. For me, it required ~$9400, some clarifying, and careful maneuvering.
kvnforsberg.bsky.social
I emailed the NIH Office of Science Policy (who were amazing). I was assured that NIHMS processing times would not impact my compliance. I should just upload the version of record when it came.

A few more Elsevier emails and I had the VOR. I sent it to NIHMS and complied with everyone’s policies. 🤞
kvnforsberg.bsky.social
But the version of record is typically ready just days before online release. And NIHMS can take weeks to process manuscripts for PMC. How to comply?
kvnforsberg.bsky.social
But what about author-accepted manuscripts? I had read that I could upload that version.

Well, Elsevier only allows uploads of author-accepted manuscripts after a 12-month embargo period. So, it had to be the version-of-record (again, per Elsevier emails).
kvnforsberg.bsky.social
This NIH policy required our paper to be at PubMed Central without embargo upon its publication. Per emails with Elsevier, there was only one way to comply with the NIH AND their sharing policy:

Purchase Gold Open Access (~$9400) and self-upload my article’s version-of-record to PubMed Central.
kvnforsberg.bsky.social
Our paper was ‘accepted in principle’ in late June but not formally accepted until early July.

So, it was subject to the recently revised timeline on the NIH Public Access Policy, which impacted papers accepted for publication after July 1st.

grants.nih.gov/policy-and-c...
NIH Public Access Policy Overview | Grants & Funding
grants.nih.gov
kvnforsberg.bsky.social
Our lab’s 1st manuscript was also Elsevier’s first test case for complying with the new NIH Public Access Policy.

It was a bit tricky to figure out how to make everybody happy (you could put that on my epitaph...)

A🧵 on how I threaded this needle of compliance!
kvnforsberg.bsky.social
Oh, and also! We happened to be the first authors in all of Elsevier to contend with the new NIH Public Access Policy.

Stay tuned for summary thread on that experience…

(3/3)
kvnforsberg.bsky.social
Oh, and also! We happened to be the first authors in all of Elsevier to contend with the new NIH Public Access Policy.

Stay tuned for summary thread on that experience…

(3/3)
kvnforsberg.bsky.social
New content compared to the preprint:

> Dallas/TdgA likely block phages via abortive infection

> Escaper mutants implicate Terminase as a trigger of the Dallas defense system

> We show our functional selections can identify abortive infection defenses at rare (one per million) frequencies

(2/3)
kvnforsberg.bsky.social
Very proud to have our lab’s first work published in @cp-cellhostmicrobe.bsky.social!

In this work, we use functional metagenomics to find phage defenses from human and soil microbiomes!

Congrats to first author @luis840alberto.bsky.social !

www.cell.com/cell-host-mi...

(1/3)
Reposted by Kevin Forsberg
audeber.bsky.social
🦠🧍‍♀️From bacterial to human immunity.

We report in @science.org the discovery of a human homolog of SIR2 antiphage proteins that participates in the TLR pathway of animal innate immunity.
Co-led wt @enzopoirier.bsky.social by D. Bonhomme and @hugovaysset.bsky.social

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
www.science.org
kvnforsberg.bsky.social
We're happy for you, Kim, but we'll sure as heck miss you!
Reposted by Kevin Forsberg
sternberglab.bsky.social
1/10 New pre-print(s) from the Sternberg Lab in collaboration with Leifu Chang's Lab! We uncover the unprecedented molecular mechanism of CRISPR-Cas12f-like proteins, which drive RNA-guided transcription independently of canonical promoter motifs.
Full story here:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...