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Suicide gene therapy is a relatively novel form of cancer therapy in which a gene coding for enzymes or protein toxins is delivered through targeting systems such as vesicles, nanoparticles, peptide or lipidic co-adjuvants. The use of toxin genes is particularly interesting since their catalytic activity can induce cell death, damaging in most cases the translation machinery (ribosomes or protein factors involved in protein synthesis) of quiescent or proliferating cells. Thus, toxin gene delivery appears to be a promising tool in fighting cancer. In this review we will give an overview, describing some of the bacterial and plant enzymes studied so far for their delivery and controlled expression in tumor models., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Dealing with a serious illness always implies, and particularly for a child, important physical and psychological stresses. If on the one hand, the adult could have adaption's resources which allow him to deal with the illness's implications, on the other hand, for a child, the interference of the disease with growing steps may cause serious problems. For this reason, the clinicians and the family have to support the educational and social continuity of the child's interactions. The school experience, in fact, helps and supports the psychological and social development of the patient. This article has the aim of describing the experiences of the authors considering the Italian legislation, discussing the scientific literature and the approaches and resources which can be used in order to maintain the children within their school career. The experiences of the authors have been collected in the Paediatric Unit of an oncology's hospital. However, these experiences may be useful also in other contexts where children are being treated for different diseases.

The transfer matrix method is a well-established prediction tool for the simulation of sound transmission loss and the sound absorption coefficient of flat multilayer systems. Much research has been dedicated to enhancing the accuracy of the method by introducing a finite size effect of the structure to be simulated. The aim of this paper is to present a reduced-order integral formulation to predict radiation efficiency and radiation impedance for a panel with equal lateral dimensions. The results are presented and discussed for different materials in terms of radiation efficiency, sound transmission loss, and the sound absorption coefficient. Finally, the application of the proposed methodology for rectangular multilayer systems is also investigated and validated against experimental data.