Science & Technology Desk

Researchers at Tehran Medical University have synthesized guanidine functionalized mesoporous silica nanoparticles as a drug delivery system for breast cancer patients.
The PEGylated I3ad mesoporous silica nanoparticle KIT-6 was utilized as a promising system for the effective delivery of curcumin into the breast cancer cells.
The system presented high drug loading capacity and long-term anticancer efficacy in human cancer cell lines.
Results of the research indicated the satisfactory results of in vitro breast cancer therapy.  
Leila Ma’mani, Safoura Nikzad, Hamid Reza Kheiri-Manjili, Sharafeddin al-Mousavi, Mina Saeedi, Sonia Askarlou, Alireza Foroumadi and Abbas Shafeie conducted the research.

For years, astronomers have been puzzled by a bizarre object in the center of the Milky Way that was believed to be a hydrogen gas cloud headed toward our galaxy’s enormous black hole.
Having studied it during its closest approach to the black hole this summer, UCLA astronomers believe that they have solved the riddle of the object widely known as G2, newsnow.co.uk reported.
A team led by Andrea Ghez, professor of physics and astronomy in the UCLA College, determined that G2 is most likely a pair of binary stars that had been orbiting the black hole in tandem and merged together into an extremely large star, cloaked in gas and dust; its movements choreographed by the black hole’s powerful gravitational field.
Astronomers had figured that if G2 had been a hydrogen cloud, it could have been torn apart by the black hole, and that the resulting celestial fireworks would have dramatically changed the state of the black hole.
“G2 survived and continued happily on its orbit; a simple gas cloud would not have done that,” said Ghez, who holds the Lauren B. Leichtman and Arthur E. Levine Chair in Astrophysics.
“G2 was basically unaffected by the black hole. There were no fireworks.”
Black holes, which form out of the collapse of matter, have such high density that nothing can escape their gravitational pull, not even light.
“They cannot be seen directly, but their influence on nearby stars is visible and provides a signature,” said Ghez.

A study conducted by the UPV/EHU-University of the Basque Country suggests that single-wall carbon nanotubes could be used as universal scaffolding to help replicate the properties of cell membrane channels.
Biological membranes define the functional architecture of living systems. They are selectively permeable, maintain the chemical identity of the cells and intracellular organelles, and regulate the exchange of material between them, Physorg said.
To control the transportation of ions and small molecules through cell membranes, highly specialized proteins that transport these molecules through the membrane are used.
Recent advances in nanotechnology and nanofabrication have made it possible to synthesize and manufacture artificial compounds destined to fulfill the functions of transmembrane channels and transporters.
The behavior of these artificial compounds is increasingly similar to that of their cell prototypes; in other words, they have increasingly similar characteristics: Molecular selectivity, membrane targeting and transport efficiency.
However, creating a universal, versatile prototype to manufacture channels with specific transport properties remains a challenge.
The study suggests that single-wall carbon nanotubes (CNTs) can be used as a framework with similar affinity and transport properties as protein channels. Nanotubes are very efficient transporters because their narrow diameter (of about 1 nm) and hydrophobic interior are very similar to the general structural design of these proteins.
Researchers involved in the study have discovered that ultrashort CNTs covered with lipid molecules form channels in artificial membranes as well as in living cell membranes. These structures remain stable in solution and spontaneously insert into the membranes.
Likewise, the researchers have seen that the CNTs inserted in a membrane contain transport properties comparable with those of small ion channels. What is more, they have found that these CNTs are capable of transporting DNA.
 

 Science & Technology Desk

Researchers of Pharmaceutical Sciences Research Center affiliated to Mashhad Medical University, in collaboration with their counterparts at Mashhad Jihad University, northeastern Iran, are designing contact lenses that can release drugs.
The lenses could deliver more consistent dosages of drugs than eye drops and make it easier for some patients to take their medication.
Often drops will leak out of the eye, making dosages inconsistent.
Dr. Ahmad Mohajeri, a faculty member of the center, said about 70 percent of the project have been completed and it will be completed in a year.
Mohajeri explained that daily-wear contact lenses, which release drugs throughout the day, could provide a simple solution for glaucoma and cataract patients to get necessary drugs, especially those who need corrective lenses.
 

The First International Conference on Composite Pipes, Vessels and Tanks will be held in Tehran on 28-29 January 2015.
Uniform and unitized development of composite pipes, vessels and tanks, as one of the most important fundamental and infrastructural industries, require deep and comprehensive analysis of association challenges in various fields of science and technology policymaking and programming, Fars News Agency reported.  
The conference will be held by Composites Research Laboratory of the Faculty of New Sciences and Technologies in the University of Tehran to help exchange information among government sectors, policymakers, industrialists and academic staff.
Topics of the conference are as follows: Design and analysis, manufacturing and test methods, installation, joints and fittings, environmental issues, marketing and strategy, repair, maintenance and special issues. The deadline for paper submission to the conference is 16 November 2014.
For more information about the conference and registration, please visit the conference’s website at http://www.cpvtconf.com/en/.

 

NYU Langone yeast geneticists report they have developed a novel tool, dubbed “Telomerator,” that could redefine the limits of synthetic biology and advance how successfully living things can be engineered or constructed in the laboratory based on an organism’s genetic, chemical base-pair structure.
Synthetic biologists aim to use such “designer” microorganisms to produce novel medicines, nutrients and biofuels, Science Daily wrote.
In the report, NYU Langone scientists say the telomerator should also improve study of yeast genetics, the model microorganism for human genetics and help researchers determine how genes, as well as the chromosomes housing them, interact with each other.
The research team, led by Jef Boeke, PhD, a professor and director of NYU Langone’s Institute for Systems Genetics, built the telomerator to convert circular chromosomes into linear ones.
Boeke says this better resembles the natural structure of more complex organisms, including humans. Comprising about 1,500 chemical base pairs linked together, the human-made piece of telomerator code can be inserted as a single unit at any position on circular DNA and almost anywhere among a chromosome’s other genes, whose base pairs can number into the hundreds of thousands.
“Our new telomerator resolves a serious and practical issue facing biologists everywhere by helping us experiment with synthetic genes in ways that are more realistic and more closely aligned to the biology of higher organisms, such as humans,” says Boeke.
“Until now, we’ve relied on synthesizing functional and stable yeast chromosomes in a circular format, with their telomeres cut off, so they can be uniformly reproduced for easy experimentation within bacteria, whose chromosomes are circular in shape.”

Sharif University of Technology will host the First National Navigation Conference from February 18 to 19.