About the Authors

Vengatesh Ganapathy

Affiliation Department of Otorhinolaryngology, The University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States of America

Jimmy Manyanga

Affiliations Department of Otorhinolaryngology, The University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States of America, Department of Cell Biology, The University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States of America

Lacy Brame

Affiliation Department of Otorhinolaryngology, The University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States of America

Dehra McGuire

Affiliation Department of Otorhinolaryngology, The University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States of America

Balaji Sadhasivam

Affiliation Department of Otorhinolaryngology, The University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States of America

Evan Floyd

Affiliation Department of Occupational and Environmental Health, The University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States of America

David A. Rubenstein

Affiliation Department of Biomedical Engineering, Stony Brook University, New York, New York, United States of America

Ilangovan Ramachandran

Affiliation Department of Endocrinology, Dr. ALM Post Graduate Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, University of Madras, Taramani Campus, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India

Theodore Wagener

Affiliations Department of Pediatrics, The University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States of America, Oklahoma Tobacco Research Center, The University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States of America, The Peggy and Charles Stephenson Cancer Center, The University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States of America

Lurdes Queimado

lurdes-queimado@ouhsc.edu

Affiliations Department of Otorhinolaryngology, The University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States of America, Department of Cell Biology, The University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States of America, Department of Pediatrics, The University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States of America, Oklahoma Tobacco Research Center, The University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States of America, The Peggy and Charles Stephenson Cancer Center, The University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization: LQ TW EF IR VG. Data curation: LQ EF. Formal analysis: LQ VG JM EF. Funding acquisition: LQ. Investigation: VG JM IR LB DM BS EF LQ. Methodology: LQ VG EF TW. Project administration: LQ. Resources: DAR TW EF LQ. Supervision: LQ VG EF. Validation: LQ VG IR JM BS EF. Visualization: LQ VG JM. Writing – original draft: LQ. Writing – review & editing: LQ VG IR DAR TW EF.