The Anthropic research group used Claude, an artificial intelligence agent, to analyze genetic databases. As a result of processing DNA arrays, the model independently discovered a new enzyme system with properties similar to the CRISPR genome editing technology.
The Anthropic research group used Claude, an artificial intelligence agent, to analyze genetic databases. As a result of processing DNA arrays, the model independently discovered a new enzyme system with properties similar to the CRISPR genome editing technology.
This is stated in the Anthropic blog, where the developers announced the creation of their own laboratory in the field of life sciences and the publication of the first results of its work.
In the spring of 2026, Anthropic formed a biomedical division to test whether general AI models could organize and accelerate fundamental scientific discoveries. In the first large-scale experiment, the multi-agent system processed more than 200,000 reverse transcriptases (RTs)—enzymes that copy RNA into DNA. After 21 hours of searching with about 950 AI agents using 210 million tokens, the algorithm narrowed the list to 20 potentially valuable candidates.
During the analysis, one of the agents discovered an atypical pattern of DNA sequences in bacteriophages next to the reverse transcriptase gene. The system found was called ART. It consists of a reverse transcriptase, a partner gene, and a long array of repetitive DNA sequences. In its structure, the structure resembles CRISPR, a tool used in genetic engineering for programmed cutting and inserting DNA fragments.
The results were commented on by one of the pioneers of genome editing, Professor Feng Zhang of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Broad Institute: "This is an exciting example of how artificial intelligence agents can contribute to biological discoveries. The discovery of RNA repeat arrays associated with reverse transcriptases is truly intriguing and deserves further investigation."
All confirmatory experiments are performed by human scientists in the company’s San Francisco Bay Area laboratory, using basic biosafety levels BSL-1 and BSL-2, without the use of human pathogens.
