"What our work shows is how a complex in the center of the cell, the ER-Golgi interaction region, controls plasma membrane cholesterol, which is essential for many cellular functions, if not essential for multicellular life," says Professor Gisou van der Goot at EPFL's School of Life Sciences. Her group, working with the group of Giovanni D'Angelo at EPFL, has published a study in Developmental Cell that uncovers how pathogens exploit a key cellular process to intoxicate cells.