Anthropic claims AI Claude discovered new CRISPR-like gene editing system

The discovery comes just days after Reuters reported that Anthropic had quietly created a biolab in the San Francisco Bay Area in the United States, as the company expands its ambitions in life sciences and drug-related research.

Anthropic said Claude analyzed large DNA databases and found an unusual system built around reverse transcriptase (RT), an enzyme that copies RNA into DNA.

ART contains repeated DNA sequences that resemble patterns seen in CRISPR, Anthropic said.

The company noted that although the underlying RT had already been identified in previous studies, Claude appears to have been the first to recognize key features of the broader system, including an array of non-coding DNA sequences and an additional protein of unknown function.