Investigating the Challenges and Attractions of International Service Contracts in financing Upstream Project in Iran and Iraq Oil and Gas Industry

The high average life of onshore facilities, entering the second half of the life of large fields, reducing the recovery factor of oil reservoirs and Iran's backwardness from the development of common fields are the most important challenges of the upstream part of Iran's oil industry.Due to the impossibility of financing and necessary capital from domestic sources, it is necessary to pay more attention to foreign investment and its contractual methods in this field. Therefore, in this study, the financial-economic performance of Iran's service contracts model and Iraq is being studied and compared in terms of attracting foreign investment and financing projects for the development and exploitation of oil fields. in this regard, the financial simulation technique and sensitivity analysis of the contractor's rate of return on the changes in the financial parameters of the contractual models have been used. The results show that the IPC contract model provides better economic results for the contractor compared to buy back while motivating the contractor to achieve safe production, but the Iraqi service contract model due to the shorter payback period, which facilitates financing the project and reduces the risk of capital expenditure, especially at high oil prices is more attractive to the contractor

Ultrasound responsive Gd-DOTA/doxorubicin-loaded nanodroplet as a theranostic agent for magnetic resonance image-guided controlled release drug delivery of melanoma cancer

Theranostic agents use simultaneous for diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. In the present study, the effect of Gd-DOTA/doxorubicin-loaded perfluorohexane nanodroplets as a theranostic nanoparticle for control released drug delivery and ultrasound/MR imaging was investigated on B16F10 melanoma cancer cells. The intracellular uptake was performed by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) that indicated sonicated Gd-DOTA/DOX@PFH NDs uptake by cancer cells was approximately 1.5 times more than the nonsonicated nanodroplets after 12 h. In vitro and in vivo toxicity assays revealed that synthesized NDs are biocompatible and do not have organ toxicity. Ultrasound exposure significantly enhanced the release of doxorubicin from NDs (P-value < 0.05). Ultrasound echogenicity and T1-MRI relaxometry indicated that synthesized NDs have strong ultrasound signal intensity and high r1 relaxivity (6.34 mM(-1) S-1). The concentration of DOX in mice vital organs for Gd-DOTA/DOX NDs was significantly lower than that of free DOX. Doxorubicin concentration after 150 min in the tumor region for the DOX-loaded Gd-NDs+US group reached 14.8 mu g/g followed by sonication, which was 2.3 fold higher than that of the non-sonicated group. According to the obtained results, the synthesized nanodroplets, with excellent diagnostic (ultrasound/MRI) and therapeutic properties, could be promising theranostic agents in cancer imaging and drug delivery for chemotherapeutic application

The Effect of Folic Acid-Targeted Nanocarriers in Ultrasound Imaging-guided Sonodynamic Therapy of Human Cervical Carcinoma (HeLa): in vitro Study

Introduction: Theranostic nanocarriers can be used simultaneously for the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. In this study, the effect of dotarem-and doxorubicin-loaded nanodroplet as a theranostic agent for ultrasound-guided and-controlled release drug delivery on HeLa cervical cancer cells was investigated. Materials and Methods: Folic acid-targeted nanodroplets consisting of dotarm (Gd-DOTA) and doxorubicin (DOX) with alginate shells were synthesized and characterized. In this study, HeLa and L929 cell lines were used as cancer and normal cells, respectively. Intracellular uptake of nanocarriers was evaluated using Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-OES). Doxorubicin release in response to ultrasound exposure and its effect on cancer treatment were investigated. Ultrasound imaging was performed to assess the ultrasound signal enhancement by nanodroplets. Results: The characterization results confirmed the successful synthesis of nanodroplets with desirable physicochemical properties. Cytotoxicity test showed that the synthesized nanodroplets had high biocompatibility for normal cells and induced more death in cancer cells (75.3 vs 62.1). This effect was enhanced under ultrasound exposure (51). The ICP-OES test showed that the uptake of Gd/DOX-loaded nanodroplets for sonicated cancer cells was approximately 1.5 times higher than that for non-sonicated cells after 12 h. The results showed that the ultrasound exposure significantly increased the doxorubicin release from nanodroplets (77.5 vs 2.1). Also, ultrasound imaging showed that perfluorohexane nanodroplets could enhance ultrasound signal intensity. Conclusion: According to the results, doxorubicin-and dotarem-loaded nanodroplets with proper diagnostic and therapeutic properties can be promising theranostic agents in ultrasound-guided and controlled drug delivery for sonodynamic therapy of cancer

Developing a circularly permuted variant of Renilla luciferase as a bioluminescent sensor for measuring Caspase-9 activity in the cell-free and cell-based systems

Biosensors and whole cell biosensors consisting of biological molecules and living cells can sense a special stimulus on a living system and convert it to a measurable signal. A major group of them are the bioluminescent sensors derived from luciferases. This type of biosensors has a broad application in molecular biology and imaging systems. In this project, a luciferase-based biosensor for detecting and measuring caspase-9 activity is designed and constructed using the circular permutation strategy. The spectroscopic method results reveal changes in the biosensor structure. Additionally, its activity is examined in a cell-free coupled assay system. Afterward, the biosensor is utilized for measuring the cellular caspase-9 activity upon apoptosis induction in a cancer cell line. In following the gene of biosensor is sub-cloned into a eukaryotic vector and transfected to HEK293T cell line and then its activity is measured upon apoptosis induction in the presence and absence of a caspase-9 inhibitor. The obtained results show that the designed biosensor detects the caspase-9 activity in the cell-free and cell-based systems