Anthropic's AI, Claude, Discovers Novel Enzyme System with CRISPR-like Features
Anthropic's AI model, Claude, has autonomously identified a previously undescribed enzyme system within the DNA of bacteriophages, which are viruses that infect bacteria. This discovery, announced by Anthropic in a blog post and a preprint that has not yet undergone peer review, marks the first significant finding from the company's new molecular biology group and lab. The system, named array-associated reverse transcriptases (ART), includes an enzyme, a partner gene, and an array of evenly spaced DNA repeats, reminiscent of CRISPR arrays. Claude's agents, operating without human intervention for 21.5 hours and processing 215.6 million tokens, analyzed a database of 1.9 billion protein clusters to make this discovery. While the enzyme itself was previously known, Claude was the first to identify the associated array and partner protein. Anthropic's scientists' involvement was limited to providing the initial prompt and conducting lab work to verify the AI's findings.
