Dr. Rajeev K. Tyagi earned Ph.D. degree at Biomedical Parasitology Unit, Institute Pasteur, Paris, France in June 2011 on a very challenging and interesting topic of malaria immunology/parasitology. He developed a long lasting, stable and straightforward laboratory animal model (humanized mouse model: a versatile mouse model) to study biology and immunology of infectious diseases and beyond. Dr. Tyagi worked as postdoc fellow in the laboratory of Dr. John Adams, University of South Florida, USA and received training to explore the potential of the developed “humanized mouse” to characterize attenuated asexual blood stage falciparum parasite to understand the innate immune response of the attenuated parasite (growth mutant). Also, he developed small laboratory human liver chimeric mice by transplanting the human hepatocytes in transgenic/immunodeficient mice (TK/NOG) at USF to study the least known liver stage infection of P. falciparum. Later on, he discovered novel dendritic like cell population called “pathogen differentiated dendritic cells (PDDCs)” when incubated with P. gingivalis and tracking of monocyte derived dendritic cells (MoDcs) in a reconstituted immunodeficient NOD.PrkdcscidIl2rg-/- (NSG) mice was carried out at Augusta University, USA to understand the host-pathogen interaction. Dr. Tyagi at the Department of Medicine, Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition Vanderbilt University Medical Centre (VUMC), USA deployed his efforts to understand the role of IL-23R in the modulation of functioning of regulatory T cells and its role in the pathogenesis of colitis in an experimental humanized mouse. Currently, Dr. Tyagi has been leading a group at CSIR-Institute of Microbial Technology, Chandigarh, India and his lab is focused to: develop human-liver chimeric mice for huHep transplantation to study liver stage infection of P. falciparum and transition to asexual blood stage infection to test antimalarial drugs and vaccine candidates in one host. select highly Artemisinin-resistant asexual blood stage Plasmodium falciparum (ART-R) with Quinine co-resistance under in vitro artesunate pressure. Dendritic cells as "therapeutic vaccines" playing a crucial role in translational biomedical research. formulation and characterization of nanoscale drug carriers to deliver methotrexate (MTX) and aceclofenac to address Rheumatoid Arthritis, cancer and other inflammatory diseases as well as candidate vaccines.  GRANTS AND CONTRACTS:  Dr. Tyagi’s group is funded by DST-SERB, DBT and ICMR, New Delhi.  *Correspondence: rajeevtyagi@imtech.res.in or rajeev.gru@gmail.com; Tel.: +91-172-666-5278 or +91-172-666-5279