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Objective: The greatest challenge in cancer gene therapy is to achieve the high specificity and efficiency in targeting of cancer cells. Because the goal of cancer gene therapy is to eradicate cancer cells, many therapeutic genes could be detrimental if unintentionally expressed in normal cells. Using promoter of the genes which are expressed specifically in cancer cells or have much more expression in cancer cells than normal cells, is very noticeable tool in cancer gene therapy (CGT). In this study we were searching for cancer specific promoter which could highly express therapeutic gene. Materials and methods: In order to apply a cancer specific promoter for creating a CGT construct, a promoter which have 34% similarity to Survivin core promoter was amplified from human genome by using Nested-PCR. Survivin is a member of anti-apoptotic gene and its over-expression was observed in up to 70% of breast cancers. This gene fragment contains two transcriptional binding sites which were similar to Survivin promoter according to the evaluation of Promoter Scan, EPD, Transfac, Compel and TRRD program. These binding sites were recognized by STAT1 and E2F transcription factors. This promoter was cloned into pCDNA3.1/Hygro+ plasmid in along with hypoxia and estrogen modules and pro-apoptotic gene tBid. Results: Semi-quantitative RT-PCR results of transfected cancer cells showed that this gene fragment (Survivin like promoter) have relatively same potential as CMV promoter to direct tBid gene expression. Conclusion: Utilization of chimeric promoter containing Survivin like promoter could be a promising tool in killing cancer cells naturally by inducing apoptosis. This construct is highly effective in transcriptional targeting of tBid in comparison to control construct.

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This study investigates alternative options for allocating incomes from targeting subsidy program to different production sectors and its consequences on income distribution among Iranian households. This research is performed by computing income multipliers derived from social accounting matrix for three income groups in urban as well as rural households and allocating income to different production sectors accordingly. Results indicate that allocating income based on income multiplier of the rural high income households leads to a reduction in income inequality between rural and urban households and generates the highest absolute income for all income groups. The only drawback of this option is that it raises the income gap among different income groups in rural as well as urban regions to some extent. In addition, results reveals that in order to reach the objective of reducing income inequality, the two agricultural subsectors, cropping and horticulture production sectors, and food industries can play important role and should be given special attention in allocating income to these sectors.   

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A novel approach is presented for the reconfiguration of satellite constellations based on Lambert’s theorem. The reconfiguration problem, in this article, is considered with the constraint of overall fuel cost minimization. Hence, orbital maneuvers required for the operation of reconfiguration is designed in such a way that, transferring the satellites to the desired configuration of constellation will be possible at minimal cost. Also, the introduced method of orbital transfer for implementing the reconfiguration phase of satellite constellation has no limitation on the shape and orientation of initial and target orbits such as: co-planarity, coaxiality, circularity and/or the existence of a common point. Moreover, a method is offered for modeling the cost function of reconfiguration problem in which the two important tasks of optimal orbital transfer of satellites to the target configuration of constellation and optimal assignment of each satellite to a specific terminal position or final orbit will be done in one single step. For this purpose and in order to achieving the globally optimal solution of the reconfiguration problem of constellation the hybrid PSO/GA is used. Finally, two different scenarios of reconfiguration of satellite constellation will be modeled once by the presented approach and once by considering determined positions of flight and deployment for the satellites. The obtained results indicate the superiority of the idea presented in this article.

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The implementation of any economic policy that has expansionary effects requires relatively stable economic conditions. Under such conditions it is expected that potential predictable effects of such policy implementation on welfare of households, especially low income households could be evaluated. The economic context of poverty in the Iranian economy and the ineffectiveness of supportive institutions in particular circumstances make the effects of economic policies on low-income households widespread. In some cases, these effects are so broad that policy-makers are forced to leave or select the opposite course of that policy. Under these conditions, analyzes that illustrate the effectiveness path of policy help the policy-maker to have a clearer picture of the probable consequences of a policy. The main aim of this article is to analyze quantitatively the effects of the recent subsidy targeting policy on the welfare index (cost of living index) in different deciles of urban and rural households using social accounting matrix (SAM) approach. For this purpose two updated social accounting matrices for the years 2009 and 2011 have been used. Both matrices include 40 economic sectors. Comparing the cost of living index, we find that welfare vulnerability of households has decreased in general, however the magnitude of welfare reduction differs between rural and urban households among income deciles. Our findings reveal that the cost of living index of rural households is more than the corresponding urban households. The vulnerability in the natural gas distribution sector has tripled in urban areas in 2011and in rural areas it is nearly four times higher than 2009 level. We also find that every 100-unit increase in cost of electricity will potentially increase welfare index of urban and rural household by 34 and 46 units, respectively. From the distribution viewpoint, the welfare loss is lower for high-income deciles. In addition, our findings show that the degree of vulnerability in middle income groups in majority of sectors is less than the other income groups. The structural path of changes shows that subsidy targeting has created wide complexity and entanglement in the path of the effectiveness of fuel price changes on price indices, especially on the household living cost index. Accordingly, before implementing subsidy targeting scheme, the increase in fuel prices was influencing the household cost index in five ways, while after targeting the increase in fuel prices affected it through the twenty different paths. 

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Controlling the path of drugs movement is one of the processes that can effectively help to treat a variety of diseases. For example, in chemotherapy, small fraction of drug is delivered to the cancer cells and other amounts cause destruction of healthy tissues of body, as a result, before destruction of tumors, the body will be destroyed. Hence we cannot remove tumors from body completely. If we are able to control the path of drugs, we could remove tumors with the least injury. One of the ways through which we can control the movement of the drugs is MDT. In this project, we inspect movement of magnetic particles in the blood and their interactions with consideration of constant magnetic field gradient. After governing its equations and presenting a good model for the forces between particles we simulate these processes in the fluent software. The model we used here is a vein with 8 mm diameter. The simulation was done over 8 cm length of the vein, and from the moment of injection. The base fluid is blood which is considered none-Newtonian fluid. Distribution of magnetic particles in the base fluid has been governed by multiphase approach. The simulation results show that residence time of drug in the presence of magnetic field, increases which in turn increases the possibility of drug absorption.

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Objective: Prostate cancer is the second cause of cancer-associated death in men. In recent years, targeted therapy for cancer has attracted the attention of researchers. Targeted therapy leads to a decrease in drug adverse effects. Studies indicate that targeting peptides for cancer cells represent valuable tools for diagnostics and therapeutics. Recently, phage display peptide libraries have been used to identify target peptides to a variety of cancer cells. In the current study, we aim to isolate peptides that target PC3 cells (human prostate adenocarcinoma cells). Methods: Four rounds of subtractive panning on control cells that included 5637 (bladder), Huh-7 (liver), SW480 (colon), AGS (stomach) and human fibroblast normal in addition to four rounds of positive panning on PC3 (target cell) were performed. Polyclonal phage ELISA was used to evaluate the process of enrichment during biopanning. Subsequently, phage clones were randomly selected from titer plates, amplified by plaque-PCR, and their genomic DNA was sequenced. We conducted bioinformatic analysis for further characterization of the isolated peptides. Results: Several rounds of panning resulted in the enrichment of a number of peptides. The results of polyclonal phage ELISA indicated that the biopanning process was successful. In silico analysis showed the presence of several consensus amino acid motifs in the peptides. Conclusion: The peptides identified through biopanning can be considered as potential specific binders to PC3 cells. Peptides with specificity binding to target cells can be used for targeted gene and drug delivery to malignant tumor cells. Further analyses of these peptides are required to show their capacity for targeted delivery of various genes and drugs into prostate cancer cells.

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