About the Authors

Satyanarayana Swamy Cheekatla

Affiliation Department of Pulmonary Immunology, Center for Biomedical Research, University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler, Tyler, Texas, United States of America

Deepak Tripathi

Affiliation Department of Pulmonary Immunology, Center for Biomedical Research, University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler, Tyler, Texas, United States of America

Sambasivan Venkatasubramanian

Affiliation Department of Pulmonary Immunology, Center for Biomedical Research, University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler, Tyler, Texas, United States of America

Pavan Kumar Nathella

Affiliation National Institutes of Health, International Center for Excellence in Research, Chennai, India

Padmaja Paidipally

Affiliation Department of Pulmonary Immunology, Center for Biomedical Research, University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler, Tyler, Texas, United States of America

Munenori Ishibashi

Affiliation Department of Cellular and Molecular Biology, Center for Biomedical Research, University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler, Tyler, Texas, United States of America

Elwyn Welch

Affiliation Department of Pulmonary Immunology, Center for Biomedical Research, University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler, Tyler, Texas, United States of America

Amy R. Tvinnereim

Affiliation Department of Pulmonary Immunology, Center for Biomedical Research, University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler, Tyler, Texas, United States of America

Mitsuo Ikebe

Affiliation Department of Cellular and Molecular Biology, Center for Biomedical Research, University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler, Tyler, Texas, United States of America

Vijaya Lakshmi Valluri

Affiliation Blue Peter Research Center, LEPRA Society, Cherlapally, Hyderabad, India

Subash Babu

Affiliation National Institutes of Health, International Center for Excellence in Research, Chennai, India

Hardy Kornfeld

Affiliation Department of Medicine, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA, United States of America

Ramakrishna Vankayalapati

krishna.vankayalapati@uthct.edu

Affiliation Department of Pulmonary Immunology, Center for Biomedical Research, University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler, Tyler, Texas, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization: SSC RV. Formal analysis: SSC DT SV PKN PP MI EW ART. Funding acquisition: RV. Investigation: SC DT SV PKN PP MI EW ART. Methodology: SSC RV. Project administration: SSC RV. Resources: MI VLV SB HK. Supervision: RV. Validation: SSC RV. Visualization: SSC RV. Writing – original draft: SSC RV. Writing – review & editing: SSC HK RV.