Engineered antibody receptors enable entry of diverse sarbecoviruses, revealing gaps in vaccine immunity

Scientists engineered antibody-based receptors to enable entry and replication of diverse sarbecoviruses, including those not using human ACE2. These programmable receptors mimic viral entry by using antibody fragments, allowing study of a wider range of viruses. One fragment, E7, showed broad recognition across sarbecoviruses. Vaccine-induced immunity showed limited cross-inhibition against E7 binding to some animal sarbecoviruses, indicating a potential gap in current protection.