SMART Recent Research Highlights

Uncovering How Bacteria Suppress Immune Defences in Stubborn Wound Infections

Chronic wound infections, such as diabetic foot ulcers and post-surgical infections, are difficult to treat as some bacteria can interfere with the body’s immune defences. Hence, these persistent wounds place a heavy burden on patients and healthcare systems.

Researchers from SMART Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) interdisciplinary research group (IRG) have uncovered how Enterococcus faecalis (E. faecalis) — a bacterium commonly found in chronic wounds — suppresses the body’s immune defences. The team found that E. faecalis releases lactic acid to acidify its surroundings, disrupting the immune signals needed to trigger an effective response to infection. By silencing the body’s defences, the bacterium creates conditions that allow infections to persist and enable other microbes to take hold, leading to complex, multi‑species infections that are difficult and slow to treat.

By pinpointing lactic‑acid‑driven immune suppression as a key reason why wound infections persist, the study opens up new treatment possibilities that support the body’s own immune response rather than rely on antibiotics alone. The research opens up potential directions for future therapies, which include reducing wound acidity or blocking immune‑suppressing signals, to help chronic wounds heal more effectively and lower the risk of complications.

A One‑Minute, Non-Destructive Test to Assess MSCs’ Cartilage‑forming Potential

While regenerative therapies hold great promise to repair damaged tissue, their clinical application is limited by the unpredictable cartilage‑forming quality of mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) during manufacturing.

SMART Critical Analytics for Manufacturing Personalized‑Medicine (CAMP) IRG researchers have developed the first‑of‑its‑kind, rapid and non‑destructive method to monitor and measure subtle iron concentration changes, also known as iron flux, providing insights within a minute into the cells’ ability to form cartilage tissue. This offers a powerful way to predict the therapeutic potential of MSCs early in the manufacturing process and their suitability to be used for cartilage repair therapies.

By replacing slow, destructive tests that can take up to 21 days and permanently damage cells, this breakthrough enables earlier identification of high‑quality MSC batches and timely intervention to adjust conditions as required. The approach makes cell therapy manufacturing more consistent, efficient, and reliable, bringing it closer to delivering safer and more effective cartilage repair treatments to patients suffering from diseases, such as osteoarthritis, joint degeneration and cartilage injuries.

Insights into Why Strategic Flight Connections Matter for Global Business and Investment

A study by SMART Mens, Manus & Machina (M3S) IRG found a strong link between global air connectivity and where multinational corporations choose to invest and establish subsidiaries. Drawing on 7.5 million firm records and 30 years of international flight data across more than 800 cities in 142 countries, the researchers adopted a broader methodological approach to analyse and observe how improvements in air travel networks influence the expansion of MNCs into new cities.

The study evaluated and found that pairwise connectivity (the number of direct and indirect flights between the cities in which parent companies and their subsidiaries are located), alongside degree (number of direct flight connections), betweenness (how easily a city can reach others with minimal layovers) and eigenvector (a city’s flight routes and the connectedness of its linked destinations) centrality, play a significant role in shaping where multinational corporations establish subsidiaries. The impact of air connectivity was also found to be especially pronounced in knowledge‑intensive sectors that depend on frequent face-to-face interaction, such as finance, technology and professional services.

Notably, the relationship between air connectivity and investment has remained strong over three decades, underscoring the continued importance of maintaining and strengthening strategic air connections to increase a city’s attractiveness to multinational firms and foreign investment.

Bringing Soft Robots Closer to Human‑Like Adaptability for Real-world Applications

SMART M3S researchers have developed an AI control system that allows soft robotic arms to learn a wide range of motions just once, and then adapt seamlessly to new tasks and changing conditions without needing retraining or sacrificing functionality. 

Soft robots, made from flexible materials such as rubber and powered by artificial muscle‑like actuators, are well‑suited for delicate and adaptive tasks that rigid robots struggle with. However, their very flexibility makes them difficult to control. Small changes in the environment, such as shifts in load, minor actuator failures or external disturbances, can easily disrupt their movements, limiting their reliability outside controlled laboratory settings.

Inspired by how the human brain learns and adapts, the AI control system is one of the first general soft-robot controllers that can achieve all three key aspects needed for soft robots to be used in society and various industries: the ability to use what they’ve learned from one task to perform a different task, adapt quickly when the situation changes, and a stability measure to ensure the robot behaviour remains safe and controlled while moving.

The study marks a key step towards intelligent, versatile soft machines that can operate reliably in complex, real‑world settings. It opens up new possibilities to develop more robust soft robotic systems that can be used across sectors, from manufacturing and logistics to healthcare.