Nevertheless, with a growing number of pathogens reported to deplete MCL‐1 and target BCL‐XL or BCL‐2, and reports defining the potential use of BH3‐mimetic drugs as antimicrobials (Ohmer et al, 2016; Speir et al, 2016; Chauhan et al, 2018; Suzuki et al, 2018; Deo et al, 2020; Inde et al, 2021; Orzalli et al, 2021), it will be vital to assess the role of A1 in infectious disease, particularly as it is conceivable that anti‐cancer A1/BFL‐1 inhibitors in development (Li et al, 2021) could be re‐purposed as antimicrobial therapeutics. Here, MCL1 is linked to cancer.