Nanoencapsulation (in vitro and in vivo) as an efficient technology to boost the potential of garlic essential oil as alternatives for antibiotics in broiler nutrition.

The addition of essential oil (EO) as chitosan encapsulated can increase the efficiency of these oils in broiler feeding. Therefore, the objective of the current research was to explore the antibacterial and antioxidant potential of garlic essential oil (GEO) (free vs. nanoencapsulated) and their effects on performance, gene expression of mucin2, microbial, and morphology of intestine in broilers. A total of 900 1-day-old male broilers (Ross 308) were assigned to six dietary treatments (0, 100, and 200 mg/kg free GEO and 0 (contain of chitosan), 100 and 200 mg/kg nanoencapsulated GEO) with a 2 × 3 factorial arrangement based on completely randomized design. Garlic essential oil encapsulation with chitosan significantly enhanced antibacterial and antioxidant parameters. At 100 mg/kg nanoencapsulated GEO had significant (P < 0.01) advantages in improving BW gain (BWG) (22-42 and 0-42) and feed conversion ratio (FCR) (0-42). Maximum feed intake (FI) was also associated with the control group (P < 0.05). Broilers fed on 100 mg/kg of nanoencapsulated GEO showed higher villi length and width relative to other treatments and villi length to crypt depth ratio as well (P < 0.01). The nanoencapsulation process of GEO (P < 0.01) affected the Lactobacilli population in the digesta of ileo-caecum and mucin2 gene expression. In broiler chickens, the tested EO, especially nanoencapsulated type, enhanced more evaluated parameters. Because of its ideal properties, nanoencasulating with chitosan may also be an effective and inexpensive way to protect bioactive compounds and improve GEO effects in broiler chickens.

Imaging techniques: new avenues in cancer gene and cell therapy.

Cancer is one of the world's most concerning health problems and poses many challenges in the range of approaches associated with the treatment of cancer. Current understanding of this disease brings to the fore a number of novel therapies that can be useful in the treatment of cancer. Among them, gene and cell therapies have emerged as novel and effective approaches. One of the most important challenges for cancer gene and cell therapies is correct monitoring of the modified genes and cells. In fact, visual tracking of therapeutic cells, immune cells, stem cells and genetic vectors that contain therapeutic genes and the various drugs is important in cancer therapy. Similarly, molecular imaging, such as nanosystems, fluorescence, bioluminescence, positron emission tomography, single photon-emission computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging, have also been found to be powerful tools in monitoring cancer patients who have received therapeutic cell and gene therapies or drug therapies. In this review, we focus on these therapies and their molecular imaging techniques in treating and monitoring the progress of the therapies on various types of cancer.

Differences between the insulating limit quasiparticles of one-band and three-band cuprate models.

We study the charge dynamics of the quasiparticle that forms when a single hole is doped in a two-dimensional antiferromagnet as described by the one-band t-t'-t"-J model, using a variational approximation that includes spin fluctuations in the vicinity of the hole. We explain why the spin fluctuations and the longer range hopping have complementary contributions to the quasiparticle dynamics, and thus why both are essential to obtain a dispersion in agreement with that measured experimentally. This is very different from the three-band Emery model in the strongly-correlated limit, where the same variational approximation shows that spin fluctuations have a minor effect on the quasiparticle dynamics. This difference proves that these one-band and three-band models describe qualitatively different quasiparticles in the insulating limit, and therefore that they cannot both be suitable to describe the physics of very underdoped cuprates.

[Observational medicine in 19th century Iran]. / La médecine d'observation en Iran du XIXe siècle.

The ravages wrought by epidemics in Iran as of 1821 acted as a stimulus to medical thought while the awakening of political consciousness mobilized efforts to fight contagious diseases. The combination "epidemics-politics-medicine" made nineteenth-century Persia turn to European science for help. Thus western medicine was introduced into Persia. If this introduction has been perceived by political means and epidemiological justification, the theoretical and epistemological process involved has been almost completely overlooked or misinterpreted. It is generally considered that the imported medicine swept away the local one, but this is not altogether true. It was the internal evolution of traditional medicine which paved the way for anatomoclinical medicine. This evolution comes accross clearly in the works of Shirâzi and Sâveji between 1831 and 1862, years in which epidemics struck frequently and violently. While Europeans in Iran such as Dr. Polak qualified heyzeh (a kind of severe diarrhea) a "sporadic cholera" or "autumn cholera", Shirâzi wrote three treatises to show that heyzeh was not cholera but an ordinary kind of diarrhea caused by generalized malnourishment. Shirâzi was also an innovator in the theoretical and terminological fields, doing away with the notion of vabâ which meant a putrid atmosphere. Vabâ became a physiological anomaly which took on epidemic proportions in an impure atmosphere. The modern definition of vabâ meaning cholera was therefore elaborated thanks to Shirâzi.

[Epidemics and the evolution of medicine in Iran during the XIX century]. / Les epidemies et l'evolution de la medecine dans l'Iran du XIXe siecle.

In a description of a historical case in 19th Century Persia, this article endeavours to show how changes in medical thought occurred. It argues that Medical Modernisation was apparent in the internal changes in traditional medicine. While cholera was frequently recorded, as an epidemic disease, over several centuries in the Persian Medical literature, why and how it became at this period, before contact with Western medicine, under close scrutiny by the traditional medicine. This new scrutiny is illustrated in the writings of Shirazi, a traditional court doctor, who endeavoured to describe cholera, diarrhoea and plague. In doing this, he introduced a significant change in the meanings of vaba and ta'un (generic terms attributed to any epidemic disease). Shirazi used them specifically to mean what we understood as cholera, for the former, and plague for the latter. The internal change in traditional medical thought, together with the awakening of socio-political consciousness regarding the spread of epidemics, were the main factors clearing the path to a natural integration of Western medicine in 19th century Iran.