Chemists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have chemically synthesized a new peptide (a short protein fragment) that can bind to part of SARS-CoV-2's spike protein, a key protein responsible for getting the virus into mammalian cells, potentially disarming it. "We have a lead compound that we really want to explore, because it does, in fact, interact with a viral protein in the way that we predicted it to interact, so it has a chance of inhibiting viral entry into a host cell," said senior author Dr. Brad Pentelute, a researcher in the Department of Chemistry at MIT. Coronaviruses,...
