Tuberculosis (TB), caused by the bacterial pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) is the leading cause of death from a single infectious agent world-wide claiming over 1.5 million lives each year. With an increase in resistance to current antibiotics means that novel drugs to kill Mtb are urgently needed. Researchers from the University of Warwick have successfully discovered how Mycobacterium tuberculosis uses an essential sugar to survive in the human body for long time periods; this provides a platform to design new and improved TB drugs and diagnostic agents. Trehalose is one source of energy found in the pathogen’s own cell wall and it appears that