About the Authors

Alexsia L. Richards

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Resources, Software, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Current address: The Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America

Affiliation Department of Microbiology-Immunology, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America

Patricia J. Sollars

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation School of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska, United States of America

Jared D. Pitts

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Writing – review & editing

Current address: Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America

Affiliation Department of Molecular Biology and Microbiology, Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America

Austin M. Stults

Roles Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology

Affiliation Department of Microbiology-Immunology, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America

Ekaterina E. Heldwein

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Software, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Department of Molecular Biology and Microbiology, Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America

Gary E. Pickard

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliations School of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska, United States of America, Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, Nebraska

Gregory A. Smith

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Software, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

g-smith3@northwestern.edu

Affiliation Department of Microbiology-Immunology, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America

Competing Interests

Aspects of the described research have been filed for patent protection by four of the authors (Greg Smith, Gary Pickard, Patricia Sollars, Ekaterina Heldwein) and their home institutions (Northwestern University, University of Nebraska, Tufts University). The title of the invention is: “Non-neuroinvasive viruses and uses thereof”. Three of the authors (Greg Smith, Gary Pickard, Ekaterina Heldwein), have founded a company (Thyreos LLC) with the intention of developing live-attenuated viruses based on the findings described herein for vaccine, oncolytic vector, and neural tracing vector applications. This does not alter our adherence to all PLOS policies on sharing data and materials.