About the Authors

Viswam S. Nair

viswamnair@stanford.edu

Affiliation Division of Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, United States of America

Khun Visith Keu

Affiliation Division of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, United States of America

Madelyn S. Luttgen

Affiliation Department of Cell Biology, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California, United States of America

Anand Kolatkar

Affiliation Department of Cell Biology, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California, United States of America

Minal Vasanawala

Affiliation Division of Nuclear Medicine, Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System, Palo Alto, California, United States of America

Ware Kuschner

Affiliations Division of Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, United States of America, Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine Section, Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System, Palo Alto, California, United States of America

Kelly Bethel

Affiliation Department of Pathology, Scripps Clinic, La Jolla, California, United States of America

Andrei H. Iagaru

Affiliation Division of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, United States of America

Carl Hoh

Affiliation Department of Radiology, University of California San Diego Medical Center, La Jolla, California, United States of America

Joseph B. Shrager

Affiliations Division of Thoracic Surgery, Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System, Palo Alto, California, United States of America, Division of Thoracic Surgery, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, United States of America

Billy W. Loo Jr

Affiliation Department of Radiation Oncology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, United States of America

Lyudmila Bazhenova

Affiliation Moores Cancer Center, University of California San Diego Medical Center, La Jolla, California, United States of America

Jorge Nieva

Affiliation The Department of Hematology and Oncology, Billings Clinic, Billings, Montana, United States of America

Sanjiv S. Gambhir

Contributed equally to this work with: Sanjiv S. Gambhir, Peter Kuhn

Affiliations Department of Radiology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, United States of America, The Molecular Imaging Program at Stanford, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, United States of America

Peter Kuhn

Contributed equally to this work with: Sanjiv S. Gambhir, Peter Kuhn

Affiliation Department of Cell Biology, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have the following interest. Peter Kuhn, Kelly Bethel, and Jorge Nieva have an ownership interest in Epic Sciences, which has licensed the HD-CTC technology used in this study. There are no further patents, products in development or marketed products to declare. This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials, as detailed online in the guide for authors.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: VSN PK SSG. Performed the experiments: VSN KVK MSL AK MV KB LB JN. Analyzed the data: VSN KVK MSL AK MV WK KB AHI CH JBS BWL LB JN SSG PK. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: VSN KVK MSL AK MV WK KB AHI CH JBS BWL LB JN SSG PK. Wrote the paper: VSN KVK MSL LB JN SSG PK.