Anthropic's Claude AI Discovers Novel Enzyme System with CRISPR-Like Repeats
Anthropic revealed that its AI model, Claude, has identified a new enzyme system that resembles CRISPR, representing a notable leap in AI-assisted biological research. In the spring of 2026, the company established a life sciences research team to investigate the capabilities of AI in biological discoveries. Claude analyzed a DNA database for new reverse transcriptase (RT) examples, utilizing 950 agents to process 210 million tokens over a span of 21 hours, resulting in 3,500 new candidate systems, which were then narrowed down to 20. One agent discovered a remarkable CRISPR-like pattern. This system, termed array-associated reverse transcriptases (ART), includes an RT, a partner gene, and DNA repeats. Feng Zhang, a pioneer in CRISPR, commended the finding. Anthropic has published a pre-print and is inviting research proposals to further this method.
Key facts
- Anthropic formed a life sciences research group in spring 2026 to use AI for biological discovery
- Claude agents spent 21 hours searching DNA data using 210 million tokens across roughly 950 agents
- The AI gathered over 200,000 reverse transcriptases and identified 3,500 new candidate systems
- Claude discovered a novel enzyme system called array-associated reverse transcriptases (ART)
- ART is found mainly in bacteriophages and consists of a reverse transcriptase, a partner gene, and an array of DNA repeats
- Feng Zhang, a CRISPR pioneer at MIT and the Broad Institute, praised the discovery as exciting
- The lab is located in the Bay Area and operates at BSL-1 and BSL-2 biosafety levels
- Anthropic released a pre-print and technical report and is inviting research proposals from other scientists
Entities
Artists
- Feng Zhang
- Lucas Harrington
- Mario Rodríguez Mestre
- Sam Altman
- Dario Amodei
- Dimitri Perrin
- Jennifer Doudna
- Stanley Qi
- Carl Zimmer
- Michael Le Page
- John Power
- Levent Alpöge
- Margherita Bassi
Institutions
- Anthropic
- MIT
- Broad Institute
- Eli Lilly
- University of Copenhagen
- New York Times
- OpenAI
- The Algorithm
- MIT Technology Review
- Scientific American
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard
- Queensland University of Technology
- University of California, Berkeley
- Stanford University
- Al Jazeera
- New Scientist
- Smithsonian Magazine
- BBC Travel
- Discover magazine
- Live Science
- Atlas Obscura
- Hidden Compass
Locations
- Bay Area
- United States
- Yellowstone
- Copenhagen
- Denmark
- Australia
- Cape Cod
- East Coast