About the Authors

Andrea Cuconati

acuconati.research@hepb.org (AC); Timothy.Block@drexelmed.edu(TB)

Affiliation Institute for Hepatitis and Virus Research, Hepatitis B Foundation, Doylestown, Pennsylvania, United States of America

Courtney Mills

Affiliation Institute for Hepatitis and Virus Research, Hepatitis B Foundation, Doylestown, Pennsylvania, United States of America

Cally Goddard

Affiliation Institute for Hepatitis and Virus Research, Hepatitis B Foundation, Doylestown, Pennsylvania, United States of America

Xianchao Zhang

Affiliation Drexel Institute for Biotechnology and Virology Research, Drexel University College of Medicine, Doylestown, Pennsylvania, United States of America

Wenquan Yu

Affiliations Institute for Hepatitis and Virus Research, Hepatitis B Foundation, Doylestown, Pennsylvania, United States of America, School of Pharmaceutical Science and Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin, People’s Republic of China

Haitao Guo

Affiliation Drexel Institute for Biotechnology and Virology Research, Drexel University College of Medicine, Doylestown, Pennsylvania, United States of America

Xiaodong Xu

Affiliations Institute for Hepatitis and Virus Research, Hepatitis B Foundation, Doylestown, Pennsylvania, United States of America, Enantigen Therapeutics, Incorporated, Doylestown, Pennsylvania, United States of America

Timothy M. Block

acuconati.research@hepb.org (AC); Timothy.Block@drexelmed.edu(TB)

Affiliations Institute for Hepatitis and Virus Research, Hepatitis B Foundation, Doylestown, Pennsylvania, United States of America, Drexel Institute for Biotechnology and Virology Research, Drexel University College of Medicine, Doylestown, Pennsylvania, United States of America

Competing Interests

A. Cuconati and X. Xu are principals in Enantigen Inc., a small company that may license this technology in the future. Institute for Hepatitis and Virus Research has filed an application for a patent on use of HBF-0079 and derivatives (“disubstituted aminothiazoles”) for treatment of cancer and other diseases. This does not alter the authors’ adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials. None of the authors have any conflicts of interest to report. The authors accept and adhere to all PLOS ONE policies and practices.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: AC TB HG XX. Performed the experiments: AC CM CG XZ WY. Analyzed the data: AC TB HG XX. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: AC TB HG XX WY. Wrote the paper: AC TB CG HG.