An international team of researchers from the University of Georgia, USA, and the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, presents a promising strategy for elucidating metabolic pathways for plant compounds of medicinal importance. The research team studied the biosynthesis of two alkaloids from the plant Catharanthus roseus that are used in human medicine as anti-cancer agents. By using single-cell analyses, the scientists were able to discover new genes important for biosynthesis and show that the intermediates of the metabolic pathway accumulate in specific cell types.