About the Authors

Andrea S. Bauer

Contributed equally to this work with: Andrea S. Bauer, Andreas Keller

Affiliation Division of Functional Genome Analysis, Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, Heidelberg, Germany

Andreas Keller

Contributed equally to this work with: Andrea S. Bauer, Andreas Keller

Affiliation Biomarker Discovery Center Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany

Eithne Costello

Affiliation The National Institute for Health Research Pancreas Biomedical Research Unit and the Liverpool Experimental Cancer Medicine Center, Royal Liverpool University Hospital, Liverpool, United Kingdom

William Greenhalf

Affiliation The National Institute for Health Research Pancreas Biomedical Research Unit and the Liverpool Experimental Cancer Medicine Center, Royal Liverpool University Hospital, Liverpool, United Kingdom

Melanie Bier

Affiliation Division of Functional Genome Analysis, Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, Heidelberg, Germany

Anne Borries

Affiliation Biomarker Discovery Center Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany

Markus Beier

Affiliation Biomarker Discovery Center Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany

John Neoptolemos

Affiliation The National Institute for Health Research Pancreas Biomedical Research Unit and the Liverpool Experimental Cancer Medicine Center, Royal Liverpool University Hospital, Liverpool, United Kingdom

Markus Büchler

Affiliation Department of Surgery, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany

Jens Werner

Affiliation Department of Surgery, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany

Nathalia Giese

Affiliation Department of Surgery, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany

Jörg D. Hoheisel

j.hoheisel@dkfz.de

Affiliation Division of Functional Genome Analysis, Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, Heidelberg, Germany

Competing Interests

AB and M. Beier are employed by Febit Biotech, which has a commercial interest in microRNA diagnosis. AK was employed there as well but has moved to another company with no commercial interest. This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLoS ONE policies on sharing data and materials. All other authors have no conflict of interest.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: AK ASB JDH M. Beier. Performed the experiments: ASB AK EC WG M. Bier NG. Analyzed the data: AB ASB AK JN M. Bier M. Büchler JW NG JDH. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: EC WG JN M. Beier M. Büchler JW NG. Wrote the paper: ASB AK AB NG JDH.