About the Authors

Moreno Menghini

Contributed equally to this work with: Moreno Menghini, Barbara Kloeckener-Gruissem

moreno@menghini.biz

Affiliation Department of Ophthalmology, University Hospital of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

Barbara Kloeckener-Gruissem

Contributed equally to this work with: Moreno Menghini, Barbara Kloeckener-Gruissem

Affiliations Institute of Medical Molecular Genetics, University of Zurich, Schwerzenbach, Switzerland, ETH Zurich, Institute of Biology, Zurich, Switzerland

Johannes Fleischhauer

Affiliation Department of Ophthalmology, University Hospital of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

Malaika M. Kurz-Levin

Affiliation Department of Ophthalmology, University Hospital of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

Florian K. P. Sutter

Affiliation Department of Ophthalmology, University Hospital of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

Wolfgang Berger

Affiliations Institute of Medical Molecular Genetics, University of Zurich, Schwerzenbach, Switzerland, Neuroscience Center Zurich (ZNZ), University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland, Center for Integrative Human Physiology (ZIHP), University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

Daniel Barthelmes

Affiliations Department of Ophthalmology, University Hospital of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland, Save Sight Institute, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

Competing Interests

The authors only received a one-time unrestricted amount from Novartis in order to be able to finance the genotyping. The amount was solely spent for the process of genotyping and for acquisition of the blood samples. None of the money went directly to any of the authors or to any particular individual involved in the process of data aquisition (i.e. as salary). This was an unrestricted funding. Novartis does not expect data in return. All data will be available to the whole scientific community. 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: MM BKG WB DB. Performed the experiments: MM BKG WB DB JF MMKL. Analyzed the data: BKG MM DB JF. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: WB BKG DB FS. Wrote the paper: MM BKG DB FS MMKL JF WB. Funding/administrative support: FS JF MMKL.