About the Authors

Anthony Tam

Affiliation The UBC James Hogg Research Centre, Providence Heart + Lung Centre & Department of Medicine, University of British Columbia (UBC), Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Samuel Wadsworth

Affiliation The UBC James Hogg Research Centre, Providence Heart + Lung Centre & Department of Medicine, University of British Columbia (UBC), Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Delbert Dorscheid

Affiliation The UBC James Hogg Research Centre, Providence Heart + Lung Centre & Department of Medicine, University of British Columbia (UBC), Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Shu-Fan Paul Man

Affiliation The UBC James Hogg Research Centre, Providence Heart + Lung Centre & Department of Medicine, University of British Columbia (UBC), Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Don D. Sin

Don.Sin@hli.ubc.ca

Affiliation The UBC James Hogg Research Centre, Providence Heart + Lung Centre & Department of Medicine, University of British Columbia (UBC), Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Competing Interests

Dr. Don Sin holds a Canadian Research Chair in COPD. 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: AT SW DD SFPM DDS. Performed the experiments: AT SW. Analyzed the data: AT DDS. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: AT SW DD DDS. Wrote the paper: AT SW DD SFPM DDS.