Sam's News — science — 2026-09-30

Science

8 Anthropic's Claude AI Discovers Novel Enzyme System with CRISPR-Like Properties

Anthropic announced that its Claude AI model autonomously discovered a previously unknown enzyme system featuring reverse transcriptase with associated DNA repeats resembling CRISPR architecture. The discovery emerged from Claude systematically searching DNA sequence databases without detailed human direction, marking a significant demonstration of AI's potential in biological research and drug discovery.

• Claude discovered a novel reverse transcriptase enzyme system with non-coding DNA repeat arrays, a combination previously identified in only a handful of known biological systems
• The system was found after ~950 AI agents searched a DNA sequence database for 21 hours using 210 million tokens
• Feng Zhang, MIT CRISPR pioneer, validated the finding as 'genuinely intriguing and merits further investigation'
• Anthropic established a dedicated life sciences research group and laboratory combining Claude with experimental biology work

Sources: Anthropic AI Web Searched