About the Authors

Ivano de Filippis

Affiliations National Quality Control Institute (INCQS), Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (FIOCRUZ), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Laboratory of Bacterial Polysaccharides, Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America, Epidemiology Unit, Laboratory of Clinical Infectious Diseases, Division of Intramural Research, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America

Ana Paula S. de Lemos

Affiliation Department of Bacteriology, Instituto Adolfo Lutz (IAL), São Paolo, Brazil

Jessica B. Hostetler

Current address: National Institutes of Health Oxford-Cambridge Scholars Program, United Kingdom

Affiliation J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI), Rockville, Maryland, United States of America

Kurt Wollenberg

Affiliation Office of Cyberinfrastructure and Computational Biology (OCICB), National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America

Claudio T. Sacchi

Affiliation Department of Immunology, Instituto Adolfo Lutz, São Paolo, Brazil

Lee H. Harrison

Affiliation Infectious Diseases Epidemiology Research Unit, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States of America

Margaret C. Bash

Contributed equally to this work with: Margaret C. Bash, D. Rebecca Prevots

Affiliation Laboratory of Bacterial Polysaccharides, Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America

D. Rebecca Prevots

Contributed equally to this work with: Margaret C. Bash, D. Rebecca Prevots

rprevots@niaid.nih.gov

Affiliation Epidemiology Unit, Laboratory of Clinical Infectious Diseases, Division of Intramural Research, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America

Competing Interests

Dr. Harrison receives research funding from Sanofi Pasteur; he has received consulting fees and speaking honoraria from Sanofi Pasteur, Novartis, Merck, Wyeth, and GlaxoSmithKline. This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLoS ONE policies on sharing data and materials. None of the other authors have competing interests.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: IDF CTS MCB DRP. Performed the experiments: IDF APL JBH KW CTS MCB DRP. Analyzed the data: IDF JBH KW MCB DRP. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: IDF APL JBH KW CTS LHH MCB DRP. Wrote the paper: IDF KW MCB DRP.