About the Authors

Lia Vassena

Affiliations Laboratory of Immunoregulation, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America, Human Virology Unit, DIBIT-HSR, Milano, Italy

Huiyi Miao

Affiliation Laboratory of Immunoregulation, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America

Raffaello Cimbro

Affiliation Laboratory of Immunoregulation, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America

Mauro S. Malnati

Affiliation Human Virology Unit, DIBIT-HSR, Milano, Italy

Giulia Cassina

Affiliation Human Virology Unit, DIBIT-HSR, Milano, Italy

Michael A. Proschan

Affiliation Biostatistics Research Branch, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America

Vanessa M. Hirsch

Affiliation Laboratory of Molecular Medicine, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America

Bernard A. Lafont

Affiliation Laboratory of Molecular Microbiology, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America

Michel Morre

Affiliation Cytheris, Issy-les Moulineaux, France

Anthony S. Fauci

Affiliation Laboratory of Immunoregulation, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America

Paolo Lusso

plusso@niaid.nih.gov

Affiliation Laboratory of Immunoregulation, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America

Competing Interests

M.M. is the CEO and Founder of Cytheris, which is developing IL-7 as an immune enhancer, and has provided the recombinant cytokine for this study. The other authors declare no competing interests.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: LV VMH MM ASF PL. Performed the experiments: LV HM RC VMH BAL PL. Analyzed the data: LV RC MSM GC MAP PL. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: MSM GC BAL MM. Wrote the paper: LV ASF PL.