An international consortium reported in Nature Communications that engineered a bacterial strain which resolves long‑standing molecular bottlenecks in the biosynthesis of the anthracycline chemotherapy doxorubicin. The team identified and rewired limiting enzymatic steps to boost yield, potentially enabling more scalable microbial production of a critical oncology drug whose manufacture has been constrained for decades. The advance could lower production costs, reduce supply fragility and accelerate downstream medicinal chemistry for anthracycline derivatives.