About the Authors

Tonya M. Santaus

Roles Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliations Chemistry and Biochemistry Department, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America, Institute of Fluorescence, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America

Ken Greenberg

Roles Data curation, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Chemistry and Biochemistry Department, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America

Prabhdeep Suri

Roles Data curation, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Chemistry and Biochemistry Department, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America

Chris D. Geddes

Roles Project administration, Supervision, Writing – review & editing

geddes@umbc.edu

Affiliations Chemistry and Biochemistry Department, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America, Institute of Fluorescence, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America

Competing Interests

The University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) has filed and has had issued several patents related to microwave-based lysing and DNA fragmentation. Those patents are licensed to Lyse-It LLC, a Maryland-based biotechnology company, which Professor Geddes currently holds stock. Patent #: US US9500590B2, “Assays for pathogen detection using microwaves for lysing and accelerating metal-enhanced fluorescence.” Patent #: US10294451B2, “Flow and static lysing systems and methods for ultra-rapid isolation and fragmentation of biological materials by microwave irradiation”, Chris D. Geddes. Lyse-It LLC was not involved in the study design of the material within this paper, nor do any of the authors receive any salaries or consultancies from Lyse-It LLC. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.