Anthropic builds wet lab, 950 Claude agents discover unknown CRISPR-like enzyme in 21 hours
Flomerboy · x · 2026-09-24
Anthropic has set up a molecular biology lab and announced its first discovery: Claude agents found a previously unknown enzyme system hidden in bacteriophage DNA.
- 950 agents spent 21 hours searching a DNA sequence database; one flagged a tandem repeat array next to a reverse transcriptase that looked strikingly CRISPR-like.
- Human scientists then analyzed and tested the sequence in the lab, confirming an uncharacterized enzyme system whose function is unknown, but whose features resemble the small set of known programmable DNA cut-copy-paste systems—discoveries of this type (like CRISPR) have historically revolutionized medicine.
- The lab only works at lower biosafety levels, handles no human-infecting pathogens, and all wet-lab work is performed by human scientists.
The team shared early findings to demonstrate how Claude can accelerate scientific research.
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