Anthropic's AI 'Discovery' Faces Plagiarism Claims: Scientist Shared Similar Work With Claude for Years

stevenstrogatz · x · 2026-09-29

Anthropic last week claimed its new biology lab used AI agents to independently discover novel enzymes (ARTs) with biotech promise. Now Mario Rodríguez Mestre, a computational biologist at the University of Copenhagen, says his team has studied these enzymes for four years and has used Anthropic's models for the past three years for coding, drafting manuscripts and other tasks — sharing key findings about ARTs along the way.

He argues the real question isn't whether ARTs were already known (they were), but whether Anthropic's AI actually reasoned its way to the results or was guided by his team's work. He worries his unpublished findings were used to train future model versions. The New York Times compares it to a prior "coincidence" involving Tristan Buckmaster's Navier-Stokes work.

Related event: Anthropic's Claimed AI-Driven Enzyme Discovery Challenged by Copenhagen Researchers(5 posts)→

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