About the Authors

Nirjal Bhattarai

Current address: Food and Drug Administration, Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, Silver Spring, Maryland, United States of America

Affiliations Research and Medical Services, Iowa City Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Iowa City, Iowa, United States of America, The Department of Internal Medicine, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, United States of America

James H. McLinden

Affiliations Research and Medical Services, Iowa City Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Iowa City, Iowa, United States of America, The Department of Internal Medicine, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, United States of America

Jinhua Xiang

Affiliations Research and Medical Services, Iowa City Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Iowa City, Iowa, United States of America, The Department of Internal Medicine, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, United States of America

M. Meleah Mathahs

Affiliations Research and Medical Services, Iowa City Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Iowa City, Iowa, United States of America, The Department of Internal Medicine, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, United States of America

Warren N. Schmidt

Affiliations Research and Medical Services, Iowa City Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Iowa City, Iowa, United States of America, The Department of Internal Medicine, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, United States of America

Thomas M. Kaufman

Affiliations Research and Medical Services, Iowa City Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Iowa City, Iowa, United States of America, The Department of Internal Medicine, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, United States of America

Jack T. Stapleton

jack-stapleton@uiowa.edu

Affiliations Research and Medical Services, Iowa City Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Iowa City, Iowa, United States of America, The Department of Internal Medicine, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, United States of America, The Department of Microbiology, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization: NB JHM JX TMK JTS. Data curation: NB JHM JX MMM WNS TMK JTS. Formal analysis: NB JX WNS JTS. Funding acquisition: JX WNS JTS. Investigation: NB JHM JX MMM TMK. Methodology: NB JHM JX MMM WNS TMK JTS. Project administration: JHM JTS. Resources: MMM WNS JTS. Supervision: JHM JX JTS. Validation: NB JHM JX WNS TMK JTS. Visualization: NB JX JTS. Writing – original draft: NB JTS. Writing – review & editing: NB JHM JX MMM WNS TMK JTS.