Meeting Report

SIRCON 2021: A brief overview

Submitted: 4 January 2022, Published: 5 January 2022

© IJIR

The SIRCON 2021 virtual conference conducted on 20th and 21st witnessed enthusiastic participation of scientific fraternity across India. This article provides a brief note of the two-days comprised of lectures, panel discussions and interactive sessions.

The conference started with the opening remarks by Dr. Jyotirmay Biswas, President of Society of Inflammation Research.

Session 1 (Day 1): The first lecture by Dr. N Kumaraswamy, Chief and Director of Infectious Diseases at Voluntary Health Services (VHS) hospital, Chennai, briefed about the impact of COVID-19 and inflammation. The lecture started with the introduction to COVID-19, manifestation, and pathophysiology of COVID-19 and causes of inflammation. The speaker mainly focused on the management and various treatment available for COVID-19, medications in pipeline, and the ongoing clinical trials. The speaker also discussed the standard care followed in managing the post-covid sequelae and multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children.

Subsequent lecture by Dr. Aymeric Silvin, researcher from INSERM, Gustave Roussy Cancer Campus, France discussed about the differentiation of severe COVID 19 from mild stage and the role of elevated calprotectin and abnormal myeloid cell substrates.

Dr. Florian Krammer, Professor in vaccinology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai has briefed about antibody responses in individuals with SARS-CoV-2 infection and post vaccination. He highlighted the role of neutralizing and non-neutralizing antibodies response to SARS-CoV-2.

Session 2 (Day 2): The lecture by Dr. Puja Srivastava, Consultant Rheumatologist, Ahmedabad was focused on various rheumatological manifestations of COVID-19 such as musculoskeletal manifestation, antiphospholipid antibody syndrome (APS) manifestation, coagulopathy, cutaneous manifestation, systemic vasculitis, systemic autoimmune diseases, hematological manifestations, other organ specific manifestations and neurological manifestations.

The lecture by Dr. Padmamalini Mahendradas, Head, Uveitis and ocular immunology, Narayana Nethralaya Bangalore briefed about the ocular manifestations of COVID-19. She highlighted various ocular manifestations due to immune-mediated and secondary infections following COVID-19, post-COVID ophthalmic sequelae, and vaccination.

Dr. Seena Vengalil, Assistant Professor of Neurology, National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bangalore discussed the neurological manifestations of COVID-19, their classification, symptoms, prevalence and associated complications. She has also highlighted various research articles and case studies on this topic.

Dr. Nimesh Gupta, Staff Scientist and Head, Vaccine Immunology Laboratory, National Institute of Immunology New Delhi, highlighted T-cell response to SARS-CoV-2 in infection and vaccination, focusing on persistence of T cells in the symptomatic and asymptomatic COVID-19 patients. He also underscored the impact of vaccination on SARS-CoV-2 T cells post COVID-19 infection through glimpse of published and unpublished data.

Dr. Amit Awasthi, Associate professor, Translational Health Science and Technology Institute, Faridabad discussed adaptive immune response to SARS-CoV-2 infection and vaccination focusing on the activation adaptive immune system in SARS-CoV-2 infection. The speaker highlighted the role of type 1 interferon in COVID-19 and identification of antigen specific T cell response in vaccinated subjects.