Gulcihan Gulseren

Cancer is known as one of the major health problems with a high mortality rate. Every year, many people are diagnosed with cancer. It was reported recently that in one year, nearly 20 million people were diagnosed with cancer and 10 million people died due to cancer. (1) The most common treatment methods involve a combination of techniques in which the primary tumor is removed by a surgical procedure, and the patient is further treated with immunotherapy, radiotherapy, or chemotherapy.

Promotion of neurite outgrowth is an important limiting step for the regeneration of nerve injury and depends strongly on the local expression of the nerve growth factor (NGF). Rational design of bioactive materials is a promising approach for the development of novel therapeutic methods for enhancing neurite outgrowth, and biomaterials capable of presenting NGF to nerve cells are especially suitable for this purpose.