Animal models are essential in medical research for testing drugs and vaccines. These models differ from humans in various respects, so their results are not directly translatable in humans. To address this issue, humanized mice engrafted with functional human cells or tissue can be helpful. We propose using humanized mice that support the engraftment of human hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) without irradiation to evaluate vaccines that influence patient immunity. For infectious diseases, several types of antigens and adjuvants have been developed and evaluated for vaccination. Peptide vaccines are generally used for their capability to fight cancer and infectious diseases. Evaluation of adjuvants is necessary as they induce inflammation, which is effective for an enhanced immune response but causes adverse effects in some individuals. A trial can be done on humanized mice to check the immunogenicity of a particular adjuvant and peptide combination. Messenger RNA has also emerged as a potential vaccine against viruses. These vaccines need to be tested with human immune cells because they work by producing a particular peptide of the pathogen. Humanized mice with human HSCs that can produce both myeloid and lymphoid cells show a similar immune response that these vaccines will produce in a patient.

Rheumatic fever and RHD constitutes an important public health problem in India. The relatively low attack rate of RF, the high concordance rate for RF in monozygotic twins (19%) compared to dizygotic twins (2.5%), and the high familial incidence of RF suggest the involvement of host genetic factors in susceptibility to RF with consequential progression to RHD. To study the association of HLA CLASS II DR/DQ alleles in children and adolescents with RHD from a tertiary care center in North India. 30 RHD patients and 30 age and sex-matched controls were included in our study and blood samples for HLA typing were processed through LAB Type™ reverse SSO DNA typing method. The assignment of the HLA typing was based on a comparison with already published HLA gene sequences. The mean age of RHD patients and matched control groups were 12.97 ± 2.95 and 11.93 ± 3.23, respectively. In the cases and control group, males accounted for 63.3% and 50% of the patients respectively. A significant difference was found between the cases and controls for HLA DR∗ 15 (p-value 0.002), HLA DR∗ B4 (p-value 0.045), HLA DR∗ B5 (p-value 0.017), and HLA DQB1∗ 02 (p-value 0.005). Our study suggests that HLA class II haplotypes may provide insight into the molecular mechanism of RHD and be a useful tool in predicting the clinical outcome in RF patients, thereby affording new means of intervention or vaccine design. Larger studies are needed to address this in our population.

Background: There is a paucity of literature regarding the effect of anesthetic techniques on anti-tumor immunity, especially in Oral cavity Malignancies. We designed a study to evaluate the effect of 3 anesthetic techniques – Opioid, Lignocaine infusion and Dexmeditomedine infusion-based on anti-tumor immunity, using TGF-β, T-helper cell profile and inflammatory markers such as IL-6 and IL-10. Methods: A pilot prospective randomized trial was conducted in 90 patients undergoing surgery for Oral cavity malignancy under general anesthesia in a tertiary specialty cancer hospital. Adult cancer patients of the American Society of Anaesthesiologists (ASA) physical status I-III fulfilling the inclusion criteria were randomized to either group A (Opioid general anesthesia), group B (lignocaine infusion-based general anesthesia), or group C (Dexmedetomidine infusion-based general anesthesia). Preoperative (morning of surgery) and postoperative (24 hours after surgery) blood samples were obtained. Statistical analysis was done, and the results were analyzed. Results: Demographic profile and pre-operative parameters were comparable between both groups. We did not find any statistically significant difference in the Post-operative levels of TGF-β, neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), Monocyte Lymphocyte Ratio (MLR), platelet lymphocyte ratio (PLR), IL-6, IL-10, and T-helper cell profile( IFN-γ, IL-17A, and IL-4 as surrogate markers) among the three study groups. However, it was noted that the overall Opioid consumption was markedly reduced in Group C without any major adverse effects being noted.