About the Authors

Brittany L. Ford

Contributed equally to this work with: Brittany L. Ford, Ting Wei

Roles Formal analysis, Investigation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliations Drug Research Program, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland, Department of Pharmaceutical Biosciences, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

Ting Wei

Contributed equally to this work with: Brittany L. Ford, Ting Wei

Roles Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Visualization, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Department of Pharmaceutical Biosciences, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

Hester Liu

Roles Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Department of Radiation Oncology and Molecular Radiation Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States of America

Catherine E. Scull

Roles Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, United States of America

Saman M. Najmi

Roles Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, United States of America

Stephanie Pitts

Roles Investigation, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Department of Radiation Oncology and Molecular Radiation Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States of America

Wenjun Fan

Roles Investigation, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Department of Radiation Oncology and Molecular Radiation Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States of America

David A. Schneider

Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Resources, Supervision, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, United States of America

Marikki Laiho

Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

mlaiho1@jhmi.edu

Affiliations Department of Pharmaceutical Biosciences, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland, Department of Radiation Oncology and Molecular Radiation Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States of America

Competing Interests

M.L. holds patents (Activators and therapeutic applications thereof; 8,680,107, 10,214,491, 2195316, 2889297, 2,691,227, 2,912,456), (Compounds which inhibit RNA polymerase, compositions including such compounds, and their use; 3119781, 11,001,581), (Screening Method to Identify Scleroderma Immune Responses with Anti-cancer Activity, and Induction of such Immune Responses for Cancer Therapy; 1,454,630) and patent applications (Combinatory treatment strategies of cancer based on RNA polymerase I inhibition; 16/335,737, 17853955.7). M.L., H.L. and W.F. hold patent applications (Compounds which inhibit RNA polymerase, compositions including such compounds, and their use 18/024,407; 18/024,417; 18/024,421). These patents and patent applications are managed by the Johns Hopkins University. These do not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials. The other authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest with the contents of this article.