About the Authors

Nur A. Hasan

Affiliations CosmosID, College Park, Maryland, United States of America, Maryland Pathogen Research Institute, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, United States of America

Brian A. Young

Affiliation Battelle, Columbus, Ohio, United States of America

Angela T. Minard-Smith

Affiliation Battelle, Columbus, Ohio, United States of America

Kelly Saeed

Affiliation CosmosID, College Park, Maryland, United States of America

Huai Li

Affiliation CosmosID, College Park, Maryland, United States of America

Esley M. Heizer

Affiliation Battelle, Columbus, Ohio, United States of America

Nancy J. McMillan

Affiliation Battelle, Columbus, Ohio, United States of America

Richard Isom

Affiliation CosmosID, College Park, Maryland, United States of America

Abdul Shakur Abdullah

Affiliation CosmosID, College Park, Maryland, United States of America

Daniel M. Bornman

Affiliation Battelle, Columbus, Ohio, United States of America

Seth A. Faith

Affiliation Battelle, Columbus, Ohio, United States of America

Seon Young Choi

Affiliations CosmosID, College Park, Maryland, United States of America, Maryland Pathogen Research Institute, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, United States of America

Michael L. Dickens

Affiliation Battelle, Columbus, Ohio, United States of America

Thomas A. Cebula

Affiliations CosmosID, College Park, Maryland, United States of America, Department of Biology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America

Rita R. Colwell

rcolwell@umiacs.umd.edu

Affiliations CosmosID, College Park, Maryland, United States of America, Maryland Pathogen Research Institute, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, United States of America, University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, United States of America, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America

Competing Interests

Rita R. Colwell is Founder and Chairman of the Board, CosmosID®, and some of the other authors are employees of the company, a bioinformatics company. Rita R. Colwell is also Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park and at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. Affiliation with CosmosID and, similarly, with Battelle does not alter the authors’ adherence to all PLoS One policies on sharing data and materials online as detailed in the online guide for authors.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: TAC RRC NAH BAY DMB SAF. Analyzed the data: NAH HL KS RI ASA SYC DMB ATM-S EMH NJM SAF BAY. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: RRC HL BAY MLD. Wrote the paper: NAH RRC TAC HL RI KS SYC ATM-S NJM EMH BAY MLD. Critical review of the paper for intellectual content: RRC NAH TAC BAY MLD.