Anthropic says its Claude AI has “autonomously discovered” a new enzyme system that it compares to the machinery behind the gene-editing tool Crispr. According to the company, Claude identified the enzyme system after searching a large database of DNA sequences, with its scientists’ involvement limited to providing the initial prompt and carrying out lab work. Anthropic said nearly 950 Claude agents worked over 21 hours, processing 210 million tokens before one flagged an unusual repeating pattern in the data. The result is described as the first from Anthropic’s newly launched wet lab and an early test of Claude’s value for scientific research.
Why it matters
The announcement is positioned as a demonstration of AI agents contributing to scientific discovery, and it arrives as Anthropic prepares to go public.
Who should care
Researchers in biology and gene editing, as well as those tracking the use of AI agents in scientific workflows, may find the claim relevant.