Modeling the Tumor Microenvironment and Cancer Immunotherapy in Next-Generation Humanized Mice.

Cancer immunotherapy has brought significant clinical benefits to numerous patients with malignant disease. However, only a fraction of patients experiences complete and durable responses to currently available immunotherapies. This highlights the need for more effective immunotherapies, combination treatments and predictive biomarkers. The molecular properties of a tumor, intratumor heterogeneity and the tumor immune microenvironment decisively shape tumor evolution, metastasis and therapy resistance and are therefore key targets for precision cancer medicine. Humanized mice that support the engraftment of patient-derived tumors and recapitulate the human tumor immune microenvironment of patients represent a promising preclinical model to address fundamental questions in precision immuno-oncology and cancer immunotherapy. In this review, we provide an overview of next-generation humanized mouse models suitable for the establishment and study of patient-derived tumors. Furthermore, we discuss the opportunities and challenges of modeling the tumor immune microenvironment and testing a variety of immunotherapeutic approaches using human immune system mouse models.

Performing gender: Social workers' roles during the COVID-19 pandemic in China.

Women social workers' roles during COVID-19 have been under-researched. We contribute to filling this gap by examining patriarchal inequalities in the pay and status of women social workers in Wuhan, China to determine whether change occurred when they replaced men in first-tier responder or protector roles when the government replaced men in frontline social work with women social workers. We conducted a qualitative investigation into these practitioners' work during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in Wuhan from 23 January to April 7, 2020 through 30 in-depth interviews of women social workers (11 working in Residents' Committees, 12 in NGOs from Wuhan and six other cities; and 7 in other local organizations). The findings highlight how women social workers' roles shifted during the pandemic from being second-tier responders to assuming the first-tier responder or 'protector' roles previously held by men while they continued their second-tier responders' and traditional caring roles. Despite this shift, the data show that women's demands for higher pay and status and involvement in decision-making structures remained unmet. Although women resisted unequal gender relations, doing men's roles as protectors loaded them with a 'triple' burden as protectors, second-tier responders and carers. The lack of gender equality for these women social workers highlights an urgency for policymakers and practitioners to promote gender equality by implementing women social workers' entitlements to pay parity, engagement in decision-making, and assumption of leadership roles, i.e., as men's equals.