Browsing by Author "Demirel, A."

Filter results by typing the first few letters
Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Neuroactive peptide nanofibers for regeneration of spinal cord after injury
    (Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, 2020-10-11) Sever-Bahçekapılı, Melike; Yılmaz, Canelif; Demirel, A.; Kilinc, M. C.; Dogan, I.; Caglar, Y. S.; Guler, M. O.; Tekinay, Ayşe Begüm
    The highly complex nature of spinal cord injuries (SCIs) requires design of novel biomaterials that can stimulate cellular regeneration and functional recovery. Promising SCI treatments use biomaterial scaffolds, which provide bioactive cues to the cells in order to trigger neural regeneration in the spinal cord. In this work, the use of peptide nanofibers is demonstrated, presenting protein binding and cellular adhesion epitopes in a rat model of SCI. The self-assembling peptide molecules are designed to form nanofibers, which display heparan sulfate mimetic and laminin mimetic epitopes to the cells in the spinal cord. These neuroactive nanofibers are found to support adhesion and viability of dorsal root ganglion neurons as well as neurite outgrowth in vitro and enhance tissue integrity after 6 weeks of injury in vivo. Treatment with the peptide nanofiber scaffolds also show significant behavioral improvement. These results demonstrate that it is possible to facilitate regeneration especially in the white matter of the spinal cord, which is usually damaged during the accidents using bioactive 3D nanostructures displaying high densities of laminin and heparan sulfate-mimetic epitopes on their surfaces.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Synthesis of blue-shifted luminescent colloidal GaN nanocrystals through femtosecond pulsed laser ablation in organic solution
    (Springer Netherlands, 2016-05) Demirel, A.; Öztaş T.; Kurşungöz, C.; Yılmaz, İ.; Ortaç, B.
    We demonstrate the synthesis of GaN nanocrystals (NCs) with the sizes of less than the doubled exciton Bohr radius leading quantum confinement effects via a single-step technique. The generation of colloidal GaN nanoparticles (NPs) in organic solution through nanosecond (ns) and femtosecond (fs) pulsed laser ablation (PLA) of GaN powder was carried out. Ns PLA in ethanol and polymer matrix resulted in amorphous GaN-NPs with the size distribution of 12.4 ± 7.0 and 6.4 ± 2.3 nm, respectively, whereas fs PLA in ethanol produced colloidal GaN-NCs with spherical shape within 4.2 ± 1.9 nm particle size distribution. XRD and selected area electron diffraction analysis of the product via fs PLA revealed that GaN-NCs are in wurtzite structure. Moreover, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy measurements also confirm the presence of GaN nanomaterials. The colloidal GaN-NCs solution exhibits strong blue shift in the absorption spectrum compared to that of the GaN-NPs via ns PLA in ethanol. Furthermore, the photoluminescence emission behavior of fs PLA-generated GaN-NCs in the 295–400 nm wavelength range is observed with a peak position located at 305 nm showing a strong blue shift with respect to the bulk GaN.