Scientists have demonstrated the use of computational methods to design new antiviral proteins not found in nature, but capable of targeting specific surfaces of flu virus molecules. Such designer proteins may have diagnostic and therapeutic potential in identifying and fighting viral infections. The researchers created a protein that disabled the part of the 1918 pandemic flu virus involved in invading respiratory tract cells. It did so by preventing segment from reconfiguring. This same protein also disabled a similar section of an avian flu virus.