On Apr. 1, 2020, ImmunityBio, a privately held immunotherapy company within the NantWorks ecosystem of companies, announced it is collaborating with Microsoft to leverage the company’s Azure platform to perform a highly detailed computational analysis of the spike protein structure of the SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus responsible for the global pandemic.

The spike protein serves as the ﾓdoorwayﾔ for the virus to enter human cells, making it a high-priority target for a vaccine or antibody therapies to fight the virus.