Anthropic says Claude discovered a CRISPR-like enzyme system hidden in phage DNA
birchlse · x · 2026-09-24
Anthropic announced that Claude uncovered a previously unknown enzyme system in bacteriophage DNA: next to the enzyme gene sits a long array of repeating DNA, structurally reminiscent of CRISPR. Its function is unknown, but the handful of known systems sharing these features can all cut, copy, and paste DNA — the class of programmable systems that revolutionized medicine. Skeptics like @InVitroFuture counter that Claude mostly did tedious sequence inspection, and there's no evidence this system warrants a 'next CRISPR' effort.
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