Increasingly, antibiotics are becoming obsolute or used wrongly, with devastating consequences: the number of resistant bacteria is growing worldwide. What was once a miracle weapon has lost its magic. To remedy the situation, scientists at Saarland University have adopted a new approach to diagnostics and are taking advantage of the possibilities opened up by Big Data. Their goal is to develop tests that can be used to discover resistant germs and treat patients more quickly. To do so, they employ genetic data to decipher the genetic features associated with a pathogen's resistance to antibiotics. Hence algorithms have become a new weapon in the fight against deadly germs.