Moving forward, the German portion of the team will work to engineer a tool that allows for a more in-depth exploration of how the sugar code functions and interacts with lectin. “What we’ve done is exciting because there is potential for BanLec to develop into a broad spectrum antiviral agent, something that is not clinically available to physicians and patients right now,” Markovitz said. “But it’s also exciting to have created it by engineering a lectin molecule for the first time, by understanding and then targeting the structure.”