About the Authors

Thomas C. Schulz

tschulz@viacyte.com

Affiliation Viacyte, Inc., Athens, Georgia, United States of America

Holly Y. Young

Affiliation Viacyte, Inc., San Diego, California, United States of America

Alan D. Agulnick

Affiliation Viacyte, Inc., San Diego, California, United States of America

M. Josephine Babin

Affiliation Viacyte, Inc., San Diego, California, United States of America

Emmanuel E. Baetge

Affiliation Viacyte, Inc., San Diego, California, United States of America

Anne G. Bang

Affiliation Viacyte, Inc., San Diego, California, United States of America

Anindita Bhoumik

Affiliation Viacyte, Inc., San Diego, California, United States of America

Igor Cepa

Affiliation Viacyte, Inc., San Diego, California, United States of America

Rosemary M. Cesario

Affiliation Viacyte, Inc., San Diego, California, United States of America

Carl Haakmeester

Affiliation Viacyte, Inc., San Diego, California, United States of America

Kuniko Kadoya

Affiliation Viacyte, Inc., San Diego, California, United States of America

Jonathan R. Kelly

Affiliation Viacyte, Inc., San Diego, California, United States of America

Justin Kerr

Affiliation Viacyte, Inc., San Diego, California, United States of America

Laura A. Martinson

Affiliation Viacyte, Inc., San Diego, California, United States of America

Amanda B. McLean

Affiliation Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, United States of America

Mark A. Moorman

Affiliation Viacyte, Inc., San Diego, California, United States of America

Janice K. Payne

Affiliation Viacyte, Inc., San Diego, California, United States of America

Mike Richardson

Affiliation Viacyte, Inc., San Diego, California, United States of America

Kelly G. Ross

Affiliation Viacyte, Inc., San Diego, California, United States of America

Eric S. Sherrer

Affiliation Viacyte, Inc., Athens, Georgia, United States of America

Xuehong Song

Affiliation Viacyte, Inc., Athens, Georgia, United States of America

Alistair Z. Wilson

Affiliation Viacyte, Inc., San Diego, California, United States of America

Eugene P. Brandon

Affiliation Viacyte, Inc., San Diego, California, United States of America

Chad E. Green

Affiliation Viacyte, Inc., San Diego, California, United States of America

Evert J. Kroon

Affiliation Viacyte, Inc., San Diego, California, United States of America

Olivia G. Kelly

Affiliation Viacyte, Inc., San Diego, California, United States of America

Kevin A. D’Amour

Affiliation Viacyte, Inc., San Diego, California, United States of America

Allan J. Robins

Affiliations Viacyte, Inc., Athens, Georgia, United States of America, Viacyte, Inc., San Diego, California, United States of America

Competing Interests

The indicated authors are employees or former employees of Viacyte, receiving salary and stock options. The paper describes or references intellectual property owned by Viacyte ([1] Green C, Yu X, Bang A, Brandon E, Kelly O, Agulnick A, Baetge E, D’Amour K, Schulz TC, Robins A. Stem cell aggregate suspension compositions and methods of differentiation thereof. US Patent 8,008,075. [2] Robins A, Schulz, T. Methods and compositions for feeder-free pluripotent stem cell media containing human serum. US Patent application 20100311164. [3] Robins A, Schulz T. Compositions and methods useful for culturing differentiable cells. US Patent application 20080268534), and a third-party product that generates royalty income (LifeTechnologies: StemPro hESC SFM). 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: CEG HYY AGB ADA KK LAM MAM AB EEB EPB TCS EJK OGK KAD AJR. Wrote the paper: TCS. Performed scaled differentiation runs: HYY JRK RMC JKP EJK OGK KAD. Contributed to establishing the process, optimization, molecular and histological analyses; cell banking; or animal studies: TCS HYY CEG ESS JRK RMC JKP AGB ADA CH MR AZW KGR MJB IC JK KK LAM MAM AGB EPB EJK OGK ABM XS KAD. Contributed to writing of manuscript: KAD OGK CEG HYY EJK EPB AJR.