About the Authors

Xin Xu

Affiliations Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, United States of America, Gregory Fleming James CF Center, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, United States of America

Patricia L. Jackson

Affiliations Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, United States of America, Gregory Fleming James CF Center, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, United States of America

Scott Tanner

Affiliation Department of Pathology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, United States of America

Matthew T. Hardison

Affiliation Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, United States of America

Mojtaba Abdul Roda

Affiliation Division of Pharmacology and Pathophysiology, Utrecht Institute for Pharmaceutical Sciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

James Edwin Blalock

Affiliations Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, United States of America, Gregory Fleming James CF Center, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, United States of America

Amit Gaggar

agaggar@uab.edu

Affiliations Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, United States of America, Gregory Fleming James CF Center, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, United States of America, Pulmonary Service, Birmingham VA Medical Center, Birmingham, Alabama, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: XX JEB AG. Performed the experiments: XX ST MTH MAR. Analyzed the data: XX PLJ AG. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: PLJ. Wrote the paper: XX AG.