Iran Criticizes West Boycott Of Iranian Scientists

Tehran, Oct 8, IRNA - A member of Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution(SCRC), Mohammad Reza Mokhber Dezfuli criticized here on Sunday, the West boycott of Iranian scientific community. He made the remarks in a ceremony held to reward the outstanding activists in the area of nanotechnology. The ceremony was held at the Tehran International Fair. 'Despite sanctions, Iran by the help of 60000 university teachers and researchers has produced 2 percent of the total science produced in the world.' The high-ranking official noted that nobody in the world ignores the potentials and scientific abilities of Iranian scientists. 'Iran has been always open to the world scientific communities and it has been historically a helping hand in the world of science, but unfortunately, influenced by politically-motivated policies, western scientific communities have boycott Iranian scientific communities.' Secretary of Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution underlined that based on the comprehensive scientific plan of Iran 1404 vision, the current 5000 knowledge-based companies should be increased to 50000. 'Iran's future development and progress depends on the success of the country's knowledge-based companies.' The unveiling ceremony of seven novel nanotechnology-based products, including three lab instruments and four industrial plans, was held in Tehran on October 6 at the presence of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Iranian Vice-president for Science and Technology Dr. Nasrin Soltankhah, Deputy Head of Science and Technology Department of the President's Office for Technology and Innovation Dr. Khayyam Nekoo'ee and Secretary-General of Iran Nanotechnology Initiative Council (INIC) Dr. Saeed Sarkar were among other participants of the ceremony. The titles of the mentioned instruments and brief descriptions of them are as follows: Time-of-flight Mass Spectrometry Device. The TOF-MS device enables a mass spectrometry in which an ion's mass-to-charge ratio is determined via a time measurement. The device has a wide range of research applications in various fields, including pharmacy, environmental and food sciences, perfumery industry (for chemical analyses), toxicology as well as concrete, oil and gas industries. Fluorescent Molecular Tomography System. The device enables high-resolution imaging from animals and is used for veterinary research and clinical purposes. Today, the use of molecular imaging is not limited to preclinical research works and is extended to clinical and actual therapeutic practices. Differential Thermal Analysis (DTA) Device. The DTA device measures the enthalpy changes and isobaric specific heat capacity of materials during an endothermic/exothermic chemical reaction. The device is extensively used in pharmaceutical and food industries. Nanotechnology is a high-tech field. It is manipulation of matter on an atomic and molecular scale, usually with at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometers. Nanotechnology has a wide variety of applications from anti-allergy clothes to car parts that are more durable. Iran has taken big strides in nanotechnology in recent years. Iran stood 12th in the 2011 world ranking of nanotechnology scientific production with a total number of 2,998 journal articles. Iran also ranked 18th in world during 2000-2011 in the field with a total number of 8,146 published scientific articles. Iran's h-index value, as an efficient indicator for measuring the scientific quality, jumped up to 19 in 2010. Last October, the country also unveiled its (then) latest achievements in the field of nanotechnology in a ceremony in the presence of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. These indigenious technologies included BET analyzer, Deep Reactive Ion Etching (DIRE), Capillary Electrophoresis instrument (capable of both qualitative and quantitative analyses for drug products), HiReSPECT instrument with potential for small animal 3D high-resolution imaging. The laboratory BET analyzer can afford characterization data for catalysts, nanocatalysts, adsorbents, membranes (nano porous structures), nanofibers, nanotubes, and thin films. The Capillary Electrophoresis instrument (CEP 1000) features short analysis time, high efficiency and minimum sample intakes. The apparatus covers a wide spectrum of chemicals in areas like food, biology, environment and nanotechnology. The DIRE device can form micro and nanometric vertically or horizontally aligned structures. It has potential applications which includes, but not limited to, purification of materials such as Si, Si3N4, and SiO2; synthesis of nanowires and nanopores as in optical detectors; gas and force nanosensors; synthesis of AFM cantilever; fabrication of micro pressure gauges; micrometric gyroscopes. The choice of appropriate gases has omitted the need for usage of polymers as well as offering the possibility for production of unique structures. Small animal imaging is a new branch of imaging which effectively contributes to drug development and cancer research. HiReSPECT is the instrument which enables 2D-imaging from every 360 angels of a mouse that has been injected with a desired radioisotope. A computer software package processes the data from HiReSPECT and creates 3D visualizations to help better investigation of drug propagation inside the animal's body./end