To prevent viruses from sickening or killing us — whether it’s an individual case of hepatitis B or a COVID pandemic — it’s crucial to understand how the proteins they make initiate changes in our bodies that allow them to flourish.

A new tool has just vastly broadened the scale at which researchers can study these proteins, promising to speed basic discoveries in virology, inform the development of new vaccines and treatments, and help humanity protect against emerging pathogens.

The tool, called a viral ORFeome and described in Cell, is the largest yet of its kind and enables analysis of many thousands of viral proteins in a single experiment. Its design also expands access to biologists who didn’t train in virology.