About the Authors

Sheo B. Singh

Contributed equally to this work with: Sheo B. Singh, Ling Kang

sbsingh101@gmail.com (SBS); Hong-Ping_Guan@merck.com (HPG)

Affiliation Departments of Discovery Chemistry, Merck Research Laboratories, 2015 Galloping Hill Rd, Kenilworth, NJ, 07033, United States of America

Ling Kang

Contributed equally to this work with: Sheo B. Singh, Ling Kang

Affiliation Department of Cardiometabolic Disease, Merck Research Laboratories, 2015 Galloping Hill Rd, Kenilworth, NJ, 07033, United States of America

Andrea R. Nawrocki

Affiliation Department of Pharmacology, Merck Research Laboratories, 2015 Galloping Hill Rd, Kenilworth, NJ, 07033, United States of America

Dan Zhou

Affiliation Department of Pharmacology, Merck Research Laboratories, 2015 Galloping Hill Rd, Kenilworth, NJ, 07033, United States of America

Margaret Wu

Affiliation Department of Cardiometabolic Disease, Merck Research Laboratories, 2015 Galloping Hill Rd, Kenilworth, NJ, 07033, United States of America

Stephen Previs

Affiliation Department of Cardiometabolic Disease, Merck Research Laboratories, 2015 Galloping Hill Rd, Kenilworth, NJ, 07033, United States of America

Corey Miller

Affiliation Department of Imaging and Biomarker, Merck Research Laboratories, 2015 Galloping Hill Rd, Kenilworth, NJ, 07033, United States of America

Haiying Liu

Affiliation Department of Imaging and Biomarker, Merck Research Laboratories, 2015 Galloping Hill Rd, Kenilworth, NJ, 07033, United States of America

Catherine D. G. Hines

Affiliation Department of Translational Imaging Biomarkers, Merck Research Laboratories, 770 Sumneytown Pike, West Point, PA, 19486, United States of America

Maria Madeira

Affiliation Department of PKPD, Merck Research Laboratories, 2015 Galloping Hill Rd, Kenilworth, NJ, 07033, United States of America

Jin Cao

Affiliation Department of Imaging and Biomarker, Merck Research Laboratories, 2015 Galloping Hill Rd, Kenilworth, NJ, 07033, United States of America

Kithsiri Herath

Affiliation Department of Cardiometabolic Disease, Merck Research Laboratories, 2015 Galloping Hill Rd, Kenilworth, NJ, 07033, United States of America

Liangsu Wang

Affiliation Department of Cardiometabolic Disease, Merck Research Laboratories, 2015 Galloping Hill Rd, Kenilworth, NJ, 07033, United States of America

David E. Kelley

Affiliation Department of Cardiometabolic Disease, Merck Research Laboratories, 2015 Galloping Hill Rd, Kenilworth, NJ, 07033, United States of America

Cai Li

Affiliation Department of Pharmacology, Merck Research Laboratories, 2015 Galloping Hill Rd, Kenilworth, NJ, 07033, United States of America

Hong-Ping Guan

sbsingh101@gmail.com (SBS); Hong-Ping_Guan@merck.com (HPG)

Affiliation Department of Cardiometabolic Disease, Merck Research Laboratories, 2015 Galloping Hill Rd, Kenilworth, NJ, 07033, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors are employees of Merck & Co., Inc. and declare no competing interests. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization: LK SBS. Formal analysis: SP CM HPG. Methodology: LK SBS ARN DZ MW SP CM HL CDGH MM JC KH. Project administration: LW. Writing – original draft: HPG SBS CL CM. Writing – review & editing: HPG SBS CL CM DEK.