Developed by Anthropic, Claude artificial intelligence has taken an important step in the field of biology discovery, revealing a previously unidentified enzyme system. The model, which examined the DNA sequences of viruses that infect bacteria, made a new finding that attracted attention in the scientific world.
This system, called array-associated reverse transcriptases (ART), contains long DNA repeat sequences that are similar to the CRISPR structure. The discovery of the system reveals how artificial intelligence can be used as a helpful tool in biological research.
Anthropic has established a dedicated life sciences group to conduct basic biology research in spring 2026. The company enables Claude to analyze large data sets in the molecular biology laboratory it created in the San Francisco Bay Area.
During the research process, approximately 950 Claude agents scanned genomic data, working in parallel for 21 hours. In this process, more than 200 thousand reverse transcriptase samples were examined using a total of 210 million tokens.
From this huge pile of data, Claude identified 3,500 new system candidates and selected the 20 most notable candidates for further analysis. Artificial intelligence agents completed the genome mining work, which could take weeks for human researchers, in a much shorter time.
While scanning the raw DNA sequences around the gene, the model noticed long sequences that repeated at regular intervals. Comparing the structure to known systems, Claude scanned the scientific literature to report on a previously unreported biological system candidate.
The discovered candidates were presented to human scientists to be subjected to physical experiments in a laboratory environment. The proteins were expressed in standard laboratory organisms and their biochemical properties were investigated.
The ART system consists of three basic parts: a reverse transcriptase, an adjacent partner gene, and long DNA repeat sequences. This structure is predominantly found in bacteriophages, which are viruses that infect bacteria.
The reverse transcriptase itself in the system has been identified in previous studies. Claude's contribution was to reveal that the non-coding DNA sequences found next to this enzyme and the protein of unknown function are parts of the same system.
The arrangement of DNA repeats is similar to CRISPR systems, but it is not yet clear whether ART is a direct gene editing tool. Studies on what molecular processes the system carries out and its biological function continue.
MIT and Broad Institute professor Feng Zhang reviewed the preprint and noted that the RNA repeat sequences associated with reverse transcriptases are of scientific interest. Researchers are trying to understand whether this system plays a role in DNA processes such as cutting or copying.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei emphasized that most of the research was conducted by Claude, but the physical experiments were performed by humans. There is currently no physical experiment process managed by artificial intelligence in the laboratory.
Amodei states that artificial intelligence will be able to control laboratory devices in the future when security measures are provided. This study represents the first stage of a broad chain of research extending from basic biology to drug discovery.
Artificial intelligence is seen as promising in terms of accelerating biological discoveries, finding new drug targets and developing treatment methods. The research team aims to extend the same method to fields beyond genomics.
