About the Authors

Owen M. Wolkowitz

owen.wolkowitz@ucsf.edu

Affiliation Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Francisco (UCSF) School of Medicine, San Francisco, California, United States of America

Synthia H. Mellon

Affiliation Department of OB-GYN and Reproductive Sciences, University of California San Francisco (UCSF) School of Medicine, San Francisco, California, United States of America

Elissa S. Epel

Affiliation Department of Psychiatry and Health Psychology Program, University of California San Francisco (UCSF) School of Medicine, San Francisco, California, United States of America

Jue Lin

Affiliation Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of California San Francisco (UCSF) School of Medicine, San Francisco, California, United States of America

Firdaus S. Dhabhar

Affiliation Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, United States of America

Yali Su

Affiliation Kronos Science Laboratory, Phoenix, Arizona, United States of America

Victor I. Reus

Affiliation Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Francisco (UCSF) School of Medicine, San Francisco, California, United States of America

Rebecca Rosser

Affiliation Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Francisco (UCSF) School of Medicine, San Francisco, California, United States of America

Heather M. Burke

Affiliation Department of Psychiatry and Health Psychology Program, University of California San Francisco (UCSF) School of Medicine, San Francisco, California, United States of America

Eve Kupferman

Affiliation Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Francisco (UCSF) School of Medicine, San Francisco, California, United States of America

Mariana Compagnone

Affiliation Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Francisco (UCSF) School of Medicine, San Francisco, California, United States of America

J. Craig Nelson

Affiliation Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Francisco (UCSF) School of Medicine, San Francisco, California, United States of America

Elizabeth H. Blackburn

Affiliation Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of California San Francisco (UCSF) School of Medicine, San Francisco, California, United States of America

Competing Interests

1. Drs. Elizabeth Blackburn, Elissa Epel and Jue Lin are co-founders of Telome Health, Inc., a diagnostics company related to telomere biology, and they own stock in the company. 2. Drs. Elizabeth Blackburn, Elissa Epel, Jue Lin, Owen Wolkowitz and Synthia Mellon, on behalf of the Regents of the University of California (who will be assignees of the patent), have applied for a patent covering the use of cell aging markers (including telomerase activity) as a biomarker of depression. 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: OMW SHM ESE FSD VIR HMB EHB. Performed the experiments: OMW SHM JL FSD YS VIR RR HMB EK JCN. Analyzed the data: OMW SHM ESE JL FSD RR HMB MC EHB. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: SHM JL FSD YS EHB. Wrote the paper: OMW SHM ESE JL FSD YS VIR RR JCN EHB.