When SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, infects a human cell, it quickly begins to replicate by seizing the cell’s existing metabolic machinery. The infected cells churn out thousands of viral genomes and proteins while halting the production of their own resources. Researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), and the Broad Institute, studying cultured cells shortly after infecting them with the virus, now have more insight into the metabolic pathways co-opted by the virus. The findings, published in Nature Communications, highlight the potential therapeutic benefit of drugs such as methotrexate, which inhibit folate and one-carbon metabolic pathways appropriated by the virus.