Antibiotics are a double-edged sword—they should be as toxic as possible to pathogenic bacteria while being harmless to the cells of the human body. An international research team led by the Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS) has now developed drug candidates that achieve precisely that. HIPS is a site of the Helmholtz Center for Infection Research (HZI) in collaboration with Saarland University.