About the Authors

Patrick T. Hennessey

Affiliation Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America

Tiffany Sanford

Affiliation Asuragen, Inc., Austin, Texas, United States of America

Ashish Choudhary

Affiliation Asuragen, Inc., Austin, Texas, United States of America

Wojciech W. Mydlarz

Affiliation Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America

David Brown

Affiliation MiRNA Therapeutics, Inc., Austin, Texas, United States of America

Alex Tamas Adai

Affiliation Asuragen, Inc., Austin, Texas, United States of America

Michael F. Ochs

Affiliations Department of Oncology, Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America, Division of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America

Steven A. Ahrendt

Affiliation Division of Surgical Oncology, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States of America

Elizabeth Mambo

Affiliation Asuragen, Inc., Austin, Texas, United States of America

Joseph A. Califano

jcalifa@jhmi.edu

Affiliations Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America, Milton J. Dance Head and Neck Center, Greater Baltimore Medical Center, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America

Competing Interests

Dr. Elizabeth Mambo, Tiffany Sanford, Ashish Choudhary, and Alex Tamas Adai are employees of Asuragen, Inc. David Brown was an employee of Asuragen at the time the research was conducted. All of these scientists conducted the research reported in this publication as part of their employment with Asuragen. There is no direct financial benefit to the researchers for the publication of this manuscript. Asuragen conducts independent internal review of manuscripts to uphold scientific integrity and manage conflicts of interest. David Brown currently is employed by miRNA Therapeutics, Inc. He conducted the research presented in this article while he was an employee of Asuragen, Inc. His participation in the research presented in this manuscript ended after he left Asuragen, Inc. The management and owners of miRNA Therapeutics had no role in the research presented in this manuscript or any influence over the preparation of the manuscript.This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLoS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: JC EM PH. Performed the experiments: TS AC DB ATA. Analyzed the data: MO EM. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: PH WM SA. Wrote the paper: PH EM JC TS.