Scientists from the Universities of Bristol, Birmingham and Leuven (Belgium) have decoded a key step in antibiotic production by bacteria, underpinning the development of new antibiotics to tackle the global threat from multiply resistant superbugs like MRSA and E. coli. Many important drugs, including antibiotics, are created by bacteria in a similar way (e.g. mupirocin, erythromycin, rifampicin). The discovery announced today brings us a step closer to controlling these biochemical pathways to produce novel molecules. For example, antibiotics might be modified to bypass the resistance mechanisms that superbugs use to survive in their presence.