Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is a viral respiratory disease caused by a SARS-associated coronavirus. The most recent version, SARS-CoV-2 was first detected in China in the winter of 2019 and is responsible for the current COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) global pandemic. This virus and its variants have resulted in over 200 million infections and more than 4 million fatalities world-wide. To combat this deadly outbreak the global research community has responded with remarkable swiftness with the development of several vaccines and drug therapies, all produced in record time. In addition to vaccines and drug therapies, diagnostic kits and research reagents continue to roll out to track infections and to help find additional therapies.

This peer-reviewed paper published in Nature Scientific Reports by Alves and colleagues demonstrates how a new assay can be used to discover novel inhibitors that block the binding of SARS-CoV-2 to the human ACE2 receptor as well as study how mutations in the SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein alter its apparent affinity towards human ACE2. The paper also details studies where the assay is used to detect the presence of neutralizing antibodies from both COVID-19 positive samples as well as samples from vaccinated individuals.

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