Claude has discovered a previously unknown enzyme system hidden in...
Anthropic@AnthropicAI
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Sep 23, 2026
~1 min read
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Claude has discovered a previously unknown enzyme system hidden in the DNA of bacteriophages. Beside the enzyme’s gene sits a long array of repeating DNA—a structure that looks somewhat similar to CRISPR.
We don’t yet understand what this system does, but only a handful of known systems share its features, and all of them are able to cut, copy, and paste DNA. Historically, the discovery of such programmable systems has helped revolutionize medicine. CRISPR, for instance, is now the foundation of genetic medicines. But it will take much more work to learn what this system does, and whether it can be put to similar use.
Read more: anthropic.com/news/claude-di…
We don’t yet understand what this system does, but only a handful of known systems share its features, and all of them are able to cut, copy, and paste DNA. Historically, the discovery of such programmable systems has helped revolutionize medicine. CRISPR, for instance, is now the foundation of genetic medicines. But it will take much more work to learn what this system does, and whether it can be put to similar use.
Read more: anthropic.com/news/claude-di…
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This is the first result from our new molecular biology lab, where a team of Anthropic biologists is using Claude to explore and accelerate fundamental biology research. There, Claude works through data and literature to generate hypotheses and candidate biological systems to study. After our scientists review Claude’s hypotheses, they test the most promising ideas, with all lab work done by our scientists.
We’d like to extend this approach to a broad range of problems—in genomics and in other fields. If you have a proposal for a research question, we’d like to hear from you.
We’d like to extend this approach to a broad range of problems—in genomics and in other fields. If you have a proposal for a research question, we’d like to hear from you.
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