Claude finds novel CRISPR-like enzyme system
Anthropic has launched an in-house life sciences group and wet lab, and says Claude agents autonomously identified a previously uncharacterized reverse-transcriptase system whose CRISPR-like repeat arrays hint at programmable DNA machinery.
Anthropic said Tuesday it has formed a life sciences research group with its own molecular biology lab in the Bay Area, and published early results in which Claude agents surfaced a previously uncharacterized enzyme system in bacteriophages.
Given a single prompt to search a large DNA sequence database for interesting reverse transcriptases — enzymes that copy RNA into DNA — roughly 950 Claude agents spent 21 hours and 210 million tokens combing the data and selecting candidates on their own judgment. One agent flagged a repeating pattern of DNA sequences next to an unusual RT gene. Anthropic calls the result array-associated reverse transcriptases, or ARTs. The underlying RT, found in a jumbo phage, was already known; Anthropic says Claude appears to be the first to identify the system's defining features, an associated array of non-coding sequences and an accessory protein of unknown function.
Feng Zhang of MIT and the Broad Institute, reviewing the preprint, called it "an exciting example of how AI agents can contribute to biological discovery" and said the RNA-repeat arrays "merit further investigation."
ART's function is not known. Anthropic says work to determine it is ongoing and that it is publishing early to show Claude's capabilities. Human involvement was limited to the initial prompt and the bench work; all lab work is performed by human scientists at BSL-1 and BSL-2, with no human pathogens handled. A preprint has been released.