About the Authors

Nicolaus Schwerk

Contributed equally to this work with: Nicolaus Schwerk, Folke Brinkmann, Bisharah Soudah, Michael Kabesch, Gesine Hansen

Affiliation Department of Pneumology, Allergy and Neonatology, University Children's Hospital, Hanover Medical School, Hanover, Germany

Folke Brinkmann

Contributed equally to this work with: Nicolaus Schwerk, Folke Brinkmann, Bisharah Soudah, Michael Kabesch, Gesine Hansen

Affiliation Department of Pneumology, Allergy and Neonatology, University Children's Hospital, Hanover Medical School, Hanover, Germany

Bisharah Soudah

Contributed equally to this work with: Nicolaus Schwerk, Folke Brinkmann, Bisharah Soudah, Michael Kabesch, Gesine Hansen

Affiliation Institute of Pathology, Hanover Medical School, Hanover, Germany

Michael Kabesch

Contributed equally to this work with: Nicolaus Schwerk, Folke Brinkmann, Bisharah Soudah, Michael Kabesch, Gesine Hansen

kabesch.michael@mh-hannover.de

Affiliation Department of Pneumology, Allergy and Neonatology, University Children's Hospital, Hanover Medical School, Hanover, Germany

Gesine Hansen

Contributed equally to this work with: Nicolaus Schwerk, Folke Brinkmann, Bisharah Soudah, Michael Kabesch, Gesine Hansen

Affiliation Department of Pneumology, Allergy and Neonatology, University Children's Hospital, Hanover Medical School, Hanover, Germany

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: NS FB MK GH. Performed the experiments: NS FB. Analyzed the data: NS FB. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: BS. Wrote the paper: NS FB MK GH. Performed BAL analysis: BS.