About the Authors

R. Kyle Palmer

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Validation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

kpalmer@opertechbio.com (RKP); iprakash@coca-cola.com (IP)

Affiliation Opertech Bio, Inc., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America

Anna B. Nechiporenko

Roles Formal analysis, Investigation, Project administration

Affiliation Opertech Bio, Inc., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America

Marc A. Ilies

Roles Formal analysis, Investigation

Affiliation Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Moulder Center for Drug Discovery Research, School of Pharmacy, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America

Marcel Winnig

Roles Formal analysis, Investigation, Validation, Visualization

Affiliation AXXAM SpA, Bresso, Milan, Italy

Stephen A. Gravina

Roles Data curation, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation The Coca-Cola Company, Atlanta, Georgia, United States of America

Rashmi Tiwari

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation The Coca-Cola Company, Atlanta, Georgia, United States of America

Indra Prakash

Roles Conceptualization, Resources, Writing – review & editing

kpalmer@opertechbio.com (RKP); iprakash@coca-cola.com (IP)

Affiliation The Coca-Cola Company, Atlanta, Georgia, United States of America

Competing Interests

The rapid throughput taste discrimination technology used in the human taste studies also is used for commercial purposes by Opertech Bio (TāStation®). RKP is a co-founder and stockholder of Opertech Bio, which independently funded the human taste studies. RKP is named as inventor on patents for the rapid throughput taste discrimination technology. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.