Anthropic formed a life sciences research lab to use Claude for biology. Claude agents autonomously discovered a novel enzyme system with CRISPR-like DNA repeats. The system, named ART, includes a reverse transcriptase, a partner gene, and repeat DNA arrays. ART was found mainly in bacteriophages and expresses distinct short RNAs. The discovery took 21 hours using 950 agents and 210 million tokens. Claude identified 200,000 RTs, narrowed to 3,500 candidates, then 20 for human review. Lab experiments confirmed the system’s unique repeat pattern. The function of ART remains unknown and is under investigation. Anthropic released a pre-print detailing the findings. The lab operates at BSL-1 and BSL-2 biosafety levels. Workflows involve Claude surveying protein families and generating hypotheses for human testing.
What changed
No prior automated discovery of such enzyme systems by AI agents was reported.
What it unlocks
Autonomous AI-driven hypothesis generation and initial analysis in biological research.
- 21 hours of agent search time
- 950 agents used
- 210 million tokens spent
- 200,000 RTs gathered
What you need to act on it
- access to Claude agents
- a massive DNA sequence database
- lab validation capability
Sources