Skin lesion datasets provide essential information for understanding various skin conditions and developing effective diagnostic tools. They aid the artificial intelligence-based early detection of skin cancer, facilitate treatment planning, and contribute to medical education and research. Published large datasets have partially coverage the subclassifications of the skin lesions. This limitation highlights the need for more expansive and varied datasets to reduce false predictions and help improve the failure analysis for skin lesions. This study presents a diverse dataset comprising 12,345 dermatoscopic images with 40 subclasses of skin lesions, collected in Turkiye, which comprises different skin types in the transition zone between Europe and Asia. Each subgroup contains high-resolution images and expert annotations, providing a strong and reliable basis for future research. The detailed analysis of each subgroup provided in this study facilitates targeted research endeavors and enhances the depth of understanding regarding the skin lesions. This dataset distinguishes itself through a diverse structure with its 5 super classes, 15 main classes, 40 subclasses and 12,345 high-resolution dermatoscopic images.

Dermoscopy is the visual examination of the skin under a polarized or non-polarized light source. By using dermoscopic equipment, many lesion patterns that are invisible under visible light can be clearly distinguished. Thus, more accurate decisions can be made regarding the treatment of skin lesions. The use of images collected from a dermoscope has both increased the performance of human examiners and allowed the development of deep learning models. The availability of large-scale dermoscopic datasets has allowed the development of deep learning models that can classify skin lesions with high accuracy. However, most dermoscopic datasets contain images that were collected from digital dermoscopic devices, as these devices are frequently used for clinical examination. However, dermatologists also often use non-digital hand-held (optomechanical) dermoscopes. This study presents a dataset consisting of dermoscopic images taken using a mobile phone-attached hand-held dermoscope. Four deep learning models based on the MobileNetV1, MobileNetV2, NASNetMobile, and Xception architectures have been developed to classify eight different lesion types using this dataset. The number of images in the dataset was increased with different data augmentation methods. The models were initialized with weights that were pre-trained on the ImageNet dataset, and then they were further fine-tuned using the presented dataset. The most successful models on the unseen test data, MobileNetV2 and Xception, had performances of 89.18% and 89.64%. The results were evaluated with the 5-fold cross-validation method and compared. Our method allows for automated examination of dermoscopic images taken with mobile phone-attached hand-held dermoscopes.

Accurate assessment of cell stiffness distribution is essential due to the critical role of cell mechanobiology in regulation of vital cellular processes like proliferation, adhesion, migration, and motility. Stiffness provides critical information in understanding onset and progress of various diseases, including metastasis and differentiation of cancer. Atomic force microscopy and optical trapping set the gold standard in stiffness measurements. However, their widespread use has been hampered with long processing times, unreliable contact point determination, physical damage to cells, and unsuitability for multiple cell analysis. Here, we demonstrate a simple, fast, label-free, and high-resolution technique using acoustic stimulation and holographic imaging to reconstruct stiffness maps of single cells. We used this acousto-holographic method to determine stiffness maps of HCT116 and CTC-mimicking HCT116 cells and differentiate between them. Our system would enable widespread use of whole-cell stiffness measurements in clinical and research settings for cancer studies, disease modeling, drug testing, and diagnostics.

Graphene has become a prominent material in cancer research in recent years. Graphene and its derivatives also attract attention as carriers in drug delivery systems. In this study, we designed a graphene oxide (GO)-based methotrexate (MTX)-loaded and folic acid (FA)-linked drug delivery system. MTX and FA were bound to GO synthesized from graphite. MTX/FA/GO drug delivery system and system components were characterized using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), differential calorimetric analysis (DSC), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), zeta potential analysis, and dimension measurement (DLS) studies. SEM and TEM images confirmed the nanosheet structure of GO synthesized from graphite, and it was shown that MTX/FA binding to GO transformed the two-dimensional GO into a three-dimensional structure. FTIR and DSC graphs confirmed that oxygen atoms were bound to GO with the formation of carboxylic, hydroxyl, epoxide, and carbonyl groups as a result of the oxidation of graphite, and GO was successfully synthesized. Additionally, these analyses showed that MTX and FA bind physicochemically to the structure of GO. The in vitro Franz diffusion test was performed as a release kinetic test. The release kinetics mathematical model and correlation coefficient (R2) of MTX-loaded GO/FA nanomaterials were found to be the Higuchi model and 0.9785, respectively. Stiffness analyses showed that adding FA to this release system facilitated the entry of the drug into the cell by directing the system to target cells. As a result of the stiffness analyses, the stiffness values of the control cell group, free MTX, and MTX/FA/GO applied cells were measured as 2.34 kPa, 1.87 kPa, and 1.56 kPa, respectively. According to these results, it was seen that MTX/FA/GO weakened the cancer cells. Combined use of the MTX/FA/GO drug delivery system had a higher cytotoxic effect than free MTX on the MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cell line. The results showed that the synthesized MTX/FA/GO material has promising potential in cancer cell-specific targeted therapy for MTX as a drug delivery system.