About the Authors

Carol Hoffman

Affiliation Department of Environmental Medicine, New York University School of Medicine, Tuxedo, New York, United States of America

Sung-Hyun Park

Affiliation Department of Environmental Medicine, New York University School of Medicine, Tuxedo, New York, United States of America

Eleen Daley

Current address: Department of Pharmacology, Emory University School Of Medicine, Atlanta, Georgia, United States of America

Affiliation Department of Pathology, St. Luke's Roosevelt Hospital, New York, New York, United States of America

Claire Emson

Current address: KineMed Incorporated, Emeryville, California, United States of America

Affiliation Merck Research Laboratories (formerly Schering Plough Biopharma), Palo Alto, California, United States of America

Jennifer Louten

Current address: Department of Biology and Chemistry, Southern Polytechnic State University, Marietta, Georgia, United States of America

Affiliation Merck Research Laboratories (formerly Schering Plough Biopharma), Palo Alto, California, United States of America

Maureen Sisco

Affiliation Department of Environmental Medicine, New York University School of Medicine, Tuxedo, New York, United States of America

Rene de Waal Malefyt

Affiliation Merck Research Laboratories (formerly Schering Plough Biopharma), Palo Alto, California, United States of America

Gabriele Grunig

gabriele.grunig@nyumc.org

Affiliations Department of Environmental Medicine, New York University School of Medicine, Tuxedo, New York, United States of America, Division of Pulmonary Medicine, Department of Medicine, New York University School of Medicine, New York, New York, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have the following competing interests: RdWM is employed by Merck Research Laboratories, Palo Alto, formerly Schering Plough Biopharma, formerly DNAX Research Institute. CE and JL were employed by Schering Plough Biopharma while being members of RdWM's research group. In the future, patents and products might be developed. This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLoS ONE policies on sharing data and materials, as detailed online in the guide for authors. The other authors have no conflicting financial interests.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: GG. Performed the experiments: GG CH S-HP ED MS JL. Analyzed the data: GG. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: RdWM CE JL GG. Wrote the paper: GG. Edited manuscript: RdWM S-HP CE JL MS CH GG. Updated RdWM on design: GG. Updated RdWM S-HP CE JL on data analysis: GG.