Olfaction is one of the primary senses of a living organism and has been used as first aid for inspecting freshness, edibility and the quality of food. This paper addresses a technique where the biological olfaction process has been mimicked by electronic nose (E-Nose) to detect a pathogen named Citrus Tristeza Virus (CTV) in Khasi Mandarin Orange plants. The proposed technique may be used as an alternative to currently used traditional serological or molecular tests which requires costly and elaborate laboratory infrastructures. In this work, leaves from 62 plants were collected and examined for viral infection using the gold standard Polymerase Chain Reaction test. A commercial E-Nose system, Alpha MOS Fox 3000 was used for hypothesis testing resulting in an accuracy of 95.30% using random forest classifier. These results were used to identify the most prominent sensors and their target gases responding to the CTV infection and was considered as a base for sensor selection for custom developing a prototype. The prototype was designed based on simulations for optimum airflow in the sensor chamber. Bootstrap ensemble of k-nearest neighbors and adaptive boost ensemble of decision tree classifier distinguished the data generated from the prototype with an accuracy of 99.36% and 97.58% respectively. The performance of the classifiers were visualized graphically using dimensionality reduction techniques. These results indicated that the ENose technique employed could differentiate the healthy and infected samples and the prototype could serve as an effective first-hand diagnosing tool for large scale orchards.

Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is one of the common type of cancer in humans. A combinatorial approach has been done by using paclitaxel (PTX), 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) and ascorbic acid (AA) loaded solid lipid nanoparticles (SLN) for its treatment. SLN were made by high-speed homogenization and ultrasonication technique and they were used alone and in combination to check their efficacy against OSCC induced animal model. Pharmacokinetics and biodistribution study of the optimized formulations for PTX, 5-FU and AA loaded SLN was performed. The SLN shows a biphasic nature of drug release both in the in-vitro and in-vivo system. SLN loaded with PTX in combination with SLN loaded with AA shows a greater potency in the treatment of OSCC in-vivo. The Pharmacokinetic and biodistribution studies of SLN depict a better therapeutic efficacy. The combination of PTX and AA loaded SLN can be a novel approach for the treatment of OSCC. Graphical Abstract

Aims: This study was designed to determine if vitamin D receptor (VDR), carrier globulin/binding protein (GC), and cytochrome P-450 family 2, subfamily R, polypeptide 1 (CYP2R1) gene polymorphisms are risk factors in the development of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in hepatitis C virus (HCV)-infected patients from Northeast India. Materials and Methods: A total of 351 HCV-infected patients were enrolled of which 167 were diagnosed with chronic hepatitis C (CHC), 124 with liver cirrhosis (LC), and 60 with HCC together with 102 age- and sex-matched healthy controls. VDR (BsmI, ApaI, and TaqI), GC (rs4588, rs7051), and CYP2R1 (rs10741657) gene polymorphisms were genotyped for all subjects. Statistical data were analyzed using SPSS ver. 22.0. Results: The frequency of the ApaI CC genotype, ApaI C allele, and bAt haplotype of the VDR gene was significantly higher in HCC and LC patients than controls. After adjusting for other covariates (age, gender, platelet count, AST, ALT, serum albumin, and viral load) logistic regression analysis showed that the ApaI CC genotype and bAt haplotype were independent predictors of HCC development. No significant associations was found for the GC and CYP2R1 polymorphisms with the occurrence of HCC. Conclusions: The presence of the VDR ApaI CC genotype and bAt haplotype appear to be important indicators in the development of HCC among HCV-infected patients. Larger studies are needed to further clarify and establish this potential causal relationship.

Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is a frequently occurring type of cancer leading loss of huge number of lives. Folic acid (FA) conjugated solid lipid nanoparticle (SLN) loaded paclitaxel (PTX) ...