About the Authors

Kishore Malyavantham

Affiliation Immco Diagnostics, Buffalo, NY, United States of America

Bianca Weinstock-Guttman

Affiliation Department of Neurology, State University of New York, Buffalo, NY, United States of America

Lakshmanan Suresh

Affiliation Immco Diagnostics, Buffalo, NY, United States of America

Robert Zivadinov

Affiliations Buffalo Neuroimaging Analysis Center, Department of Neurology, State University of New York, Buffalo, NY, United States of America, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, State University of New York, Buffalo, NY, United States of America

Thomas Shanahan

Affiliation Immco Diagnostics, Buffalo, NY, United States of America

Darlene Badgett

Affiliation Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, State University of New York, Buffalo, NY, United States of America

Murali Ramanathan

Murali@Buffalo.Edu

Affiliations Department of Neurology, State University of New York, Buffalo, NY, United States of America, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, State University of New York, Buffalo, NY, United States of America

Competing Interests

Dr. Kishore Malyavantham, Lakshmanan Suresh and Thomas Shanahan are employees of Immco Diagnostics. Dr. Zivadinov has received speaker honoraria and consultant fees from Teva Pharmaceuticals, Biogen Idec, Genzyme-Sanofi, Novartis, Claret Medical and EMD Serono. He has received research support from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, Department of Defense, Biogen Idec, Teva Neuroscience, Teva Pharmaceuticals, EMD Serono, Genzyme-Sanofi, Novartis and Greatbatch. Dr. Weinstock-Guttman received honoraria for serving in advisory boards and educational programs from Teva Pharmaceuticals, Biogen Idec, Novartis, Accorda EMD Serono, Pfizer, Novartis, Genzyme and Sanofi. She also received support for research activities from the National Institutes of Health, National Multiple Sclerosis Society, National Science Foundation, Department of Defense, EMD Serono, Biogen Idec, Teva Neuroscience, Cyberonics, Novartis, Acorda and the Jog for the Jake Foundation. Dr. Murali Ramanathan received research funding the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and the Department of Defense. He received compensation for serving as an Editor from the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists. These are unrelated to the research presented in this report. Darlene Badgett has no conflicts to disclose. This does not alter the authors' adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: KM LS TS BWG MR. Performed the experiments: KM RZ DB. Analyzed the data: KM MR RZ. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: KM LS MR. Wrote the paper: LS KM MR RZ BWG.