About the Authors

Francesca Necchi

Contributed equally to this work with: Francesca Necchi, Vincenzo Nardi-Dei

Affiliation Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics, Siena, Italy

Vincenzo Nardi-Dei

Contributed equally to this work with: Francesca Necchi, Vincenzo Nardi-Dei

Affiliation Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics, Siena, Italy

Massimiliano Biagini

Affiliation Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics, Siena, Italy

Michael Assfalg

Affiliation Department of Biotechnology, University of Verona, Verona, Italy

Annalisa Nuccitelli

Affiliation Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics, Siena, Italy

Roberta Cozzi

Affiliation Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics, Siena, Italy

Nathalie Norais

Affiliation Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics, Siena, Italy

John L. Telford

Affiliation Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics, Siena, Italy

C. Daniela Rinaudo

Affiliation Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics, Siena, Italy

Guido Grandi

Affiliation Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics, Siena, Italy

Domenico Maione

domenico.maione@novartis.com

Affiliation Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics, Siena, Italy

Competing Interests

The authors have read the journal's policy and have the following conflicts. Francesca Necchi, Vincenzo Nardi-Dei, Massimiliano Biagini, Annalisa Nuccitelli, Roberta Cozzi, Nathalie Norais, John L. Telford, C. Daniela Rinaudo, Guido Grandi and Domenico Maione are employees of Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics. There are no 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: FN VND JLT GG DM. Performed the experiments: FN VND MB MA AN RC. Analyzed the data: FN VND MA RC NN JLT CDR GG DM. Wrote the paper: FN VND NN CDR GG DM.