Claude discovers a novel enzyme system with CRISPR-like repeats
anthropic ·
Anthropic has established a new life sciences research group to explore fundamental biology using its AI model, Claude. The team recently announced that Claude autonomously discovered a novel enzyme system called array-associated reverse transcriptases (ART) by analyzing massive DNA databases. This discovery was made after Claude identified an unusual pattern of non-coding DNA repeats associated with a specific reverse transcriptase in bacteriophages. Although the exact function of ART remains under investigation, it shares characteristics with programmable systems like CRISPR, such as producing distinct short RNAs from its repeat arrays. The process involved approximately 950 AI agents searching through data for 21 hours before flagging the candidate for human review. Scientists at Anthropic then validated these findings through laboratory experiments, confirming the presence of the unique DNA structure. Feng Zhang, a pioneer in CRISPR technology, praised the work as an exciting example of AI contributing to biological discovery. This initiative highlights a new collaborative workflow where AI generates hypotheses and humans conduct experimental verification.
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