About the Authors

Elizabeth Kirby

Contributed equally to this work with: Elizabeth Kirby, Joanne Dickinson

Affiliation Health Protection Agency - Porton Down, Salisbury, Wiltshire, United Kingdom

Joanne Dickinson

Contributed equally to this work with: Elizabeth Kirby, Joanne Dickinson

Affiliation Health Protection Agency - Porton Down, Salisbury, Wiltshire, United Kingdom

Matthew Vassey

Affiliation Health Protection Agency - Porton Down, Salisbury, Wiltshire, United Kingdom

Mike Dennis

Affiliation Health Protection Agency - Porton Down, Salisbury, Wiltshire, United Kingdom

Mark Cornwall

Affiliation Health Protection Agency - Porton Down, Salisbury, Wiltshire, United Kingdom

Neil McLeod

Affiliation Health Protection Agency - Porton Down, Salisbury, Wiltshire, United Kingdom

Andrew Smith

Affiliation College of Medical, Veterinary & Life Sciences, Glasgow Dental Hospital & School, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom

Philip D. Marsh

Affiliations Health Protection Agency - Porton Down, Salisbury, Wiltshire, United Kingdom, Leeds Dental Institute, Leeds, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom

James T. Walker

Affiliation Health Protection Agency - Porton Down, Salisbury, Wiltshire, United Kingdom

J. Mark Sutton

mark.sutton@hpa.org.uk

Affiliation Health Protection Agency - Porton Down, Salisbury, Wiltshire, United Kingdom

Neil D. H. Raven

Affiliation Health Protection Agency - Porton Down, Salisbury, Wiltshire, United Kingdom

Competing Interests

AS has received lecture fees and funding for a PhD studentship from W&H Ltd, lecture fees from Steris Ltd and travel expenses for attending a meeting from Schulke and Mayr. PM identified consultancy work for Johnson and Johnson, UK and Unilever, UK. JMS identified consultancy work for Advanced Sterilisation Products and funding for research involving TSO3, CISA SpaA, BES Decon, BiotAK, and Genencor International. JMS also received travel money to attend a meeting of the British Association for the Study of Community Dentistry. This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: NR MD JW PM AS JD JMS. Performed the experiments: EK JD MV MD MC NM. Analyzed the data: NR MV NM JMS. Wrote the paper: JMS.