A team of researchers with members from the U.S., Germany and Sweden has discovered that the cellulose found in bacterial biofilms differs from the cellulose in plants. In their paper published in the journal Science, the group describes how they found the difference and what their findings might mean for developing new ways to combat bacterial infections. Michael Galperin with NIH in the U.S. and Daria Shalaeva with Moscow State University offer a Perspective piece on the work done by the team in the same journal issue.