On May 19, 2020, the NIH rported that researchers from the University of Texas, in collaboration with a Belgian research team, had developed nanobodies from llamas for research into Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS). Both these diseases are caused by coronaviruses related to SARS-CoV-2.

The nanobodies that the scientists harvested from the llama bloodstream and produced in the lab bound to the spike protein and prevented the virus from entering cells.