About the Authors

Rebecca A. M. Blom

Contributed equally to this work with: Rebecca A. M. Blom, Silvia T. Erni

Affiliations Respiratory Medicine, Department of Clinical Research, Bern University Hospital, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland, Graduate School for Cellular and Biomedical Sciences, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

Silvia T. Erni

Contributed equally to this work with: Rebecca A. M. Blom, Silvia T. Erni

Affiliation Respiratory Medicine, Department of Clinical Research, Bern University Hospital, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

Kristína Krempaská

Affiliation Respiratory Medicine, Department of Clinical Research, Bern University Hospital, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

Olivier Schaerer

Affiliation Respiratory Medicine, Department of Clinical Research, Bern University Hospital, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

R. Maarten van Dijk

Affiliations Institute of Anatomy, University of Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland, Institute of Human Movement Sciences and Sport, Department of Health Sciences and Technology, ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland

Mario Amacker

Affiliation Mymetics SA, Epalinges, Switzerland

Christian Moser

Affiliation Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property, Bern, Switzerland

Sean R. R. Hall

Affiliations Division of Thoracic Surgery, Bern University Hospital, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland, Department of Clinical Research, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

Christophe von Garnier

‡ CvG and FB are joint senior authors on this work.

Affiliation Respiratory Medicine, Department of Clinical Research, Bern University Hospital, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

Fabian Blank

fabian.blank@dkf.unibe.ch

‡ CvG and FB are joint senior authors on this work.

Affiliation Respiratory Medicine, Department of Clinical Research, Bern University Hospital, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

Competing Interests

This study was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation SNF 146249. The authors have no other affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest. MA is employed by Mymetics SA, which provided support in the form of salary to MA and specific research materials for the preparation of nanoparticles, but did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The specific roles of MA are articulated in the "author contributions" section.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization: RAMB FB CvG MA CM SRRH. Data curation: RAMB STE KK OS. Formal analysis: RAMB STE KK OS RMvD. Funding acquisition: CvG. Investigation: RAMB STE KK OS. Methodology: RAMB STE KK OS FB CvG. Project administration: RAMB FB. Resources: FB CvG MA SRRH. Software: RMvD. Supervision: FB CvG MA CM. Validation: FB CvG. Visualization: RMvD STE. Writing – original draft: RAMB STE KK. Writing – review & editing: RAMB STE KK MA CM SRRH CvG FB.