Breakthrough will aid the fight against deadly bacteria and help to develop new cures Using some of the world’s most powerful microscopes, three international research teams – from Australia, the Czech Republic and a German/US/Finnish consortium – have discovered a unique molecular mechanism that allows pathogenic bacteria to maintain efficient gene expression. The new insights are published in back-to-back articles in Nature Communications, a leading scientific journal. One of the tiny machines that operates inside our cells, keeping all living things alive, is called RNA polymerase (RNAP). RNAP reads the genetic code in our DNA and transcribes it into another molecule called RNA that carries out other vital functions, such as producing the proteins that keep us alive.