Anthropic's biology lab solves phage vault structures, finds giant complexes across bacteria
IAmSamFin · x · 2026-11-05
Anthropic's experimental biology lab, led by biochemist Januka Athukoralage, unveiled a rapid method for isolating and structurally characterizing vaults.
- Vaults turn out to be widespread across life — not just eukaryotic cells but also prokaryotes and even phages; the team assembled them from 8 different bacteria and bacteriophages and solved the structure of one phage vault
- They demonstrated vaults can be engineered with additional wall repeats to make them bigger
- These complexes are massive — bigger than ribosomes, AAV, and even some phage capsids
The open question: why do organisms spend so much energy building these huge structures? They must be doing something useful — the answer the team hopes comes next.
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