About the Authors

Feng Chen

Contributed equally to this work with: Feng Chen, Xinli Zhang

Affiliations Dental and Craniofacial Research Institute, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, United States of America, School and Hospital of Stomatology, Peking University, Beijing, China

Xinli Zhang

Contributed equally to this work with: Feng Chen, Xinli Zhang

Affiliation Dental and Craniofacial Research Institute, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, United States of America

Shan Sun

Affiliation School of Dentistry, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, United States of America

Janette N. Zara

Affiliation Department of Bioengineering, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, United States of America

Xuan Zou

Affiliation Dental and Craniofacial Research Institute, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, United States of America

Robert Chiu

Affiliation School of Dentistry, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, United States of America

Cymbelin T. Culiat

Affiliation Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, United States of America

Kang Ting

Affiliations Dental and Craniofacial Research Institute, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, United States of America, School of Dentistry, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, United States of America

Chia Soo

bsoo@ucla.edu

Affiliation Orthopaedic Hospital, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and the Orthopaedic Hospital Research Center, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have read the journal's policy and have the following conflicts: Bone Biologics, Inc. licensed Nell-1 related patents from UCLA. C.S., K.T. and X. Zhang are founders of Bone Biologics, Inc. and inventors of the related patents. This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLoS ONE policies on sharing data and materials. Patent numbers and Dates: 7.052.856 on 30-May-2006, 7.544.486 on 09-Jun-2009, 7.687.462 on 30-Mar-2010.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: FC KT CS X. Zhang. Performed the experiments: FC X. Zou X. Zhang SS. Analyzed the data: FC RC KT CS X. Zhang. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: FC CTC KT CS X. Zhang. Wrote the paper: FC JNZ KT CS X. Zhang.