On Feb. 24, 2020, researchers at National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease’s Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton, Montana, described a new approach that rapidly identified the receptor proteins that coronaviruses – like SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 – use to infect cells.

The researchers developed an approach to rapidly screen lineage B betacoronaviruses, such as SARS-CoV and the recent SARS-CoV-2, for receptor usage and their ability to infect cell types from different species. Their findings were published in Nature Microbiology.