In a study published in the journal Cell, a research team comprised of 26 scientists from the United States, Germany, Ireland, Canada, and Belgium focused on a protein found in bananas called lectin, nicknamed BanLec. They discovered that this protein is able to read the sugar molecules that cover the outside of many viruses and cells. Though they still aren’t sure how BanLec reads these sugar molecules, which they call the “sugar code,” they believe that it holds the key to controlling how viruses bind to the outside of healthy cells. A result of discovering this would eventually be the development of a new class of drugs to fight the flu.