Proteins that bind to the 1918 pandemic influenza virus have been designed using computer modelling.

The viral surface protein haemagglutinin is essential to the flu virus's infection of human cells, making it an attractive drug target. David Baker at the University of Washington in Seattle and his colleagues computed 'hot spots' — protein residues that can interact with haemagglutinin — from the 1918 virus on the basis of properties such as the predicted strength of their interaction with this protein. They then used computer algorithms to search a set of 865 protein structures for ones that could incorporate these hot spots, and came up with 88 proteins able to acquire at least two of them. When expressed in yeast, two of these proteins bound to haemagglutinin. After additional optimization, the researchers solved the molecular structure of one of these tailored proteins while it was bound to the flu haemagglutinin, revealing atomic-level accuracy in the designed interaction.

Science 332, 816–821 (2011)