Claude discovers novel mechanism in phage DNA, similar to CRISPR
Anthropic has established a bio-lab where the AI model Claude identified a new genetic mechanism called ART in bacteriophages, structurally resembling CRISPR.
Yesterday, Anthropic announced the creation of its own bio-laboratory and research group. Humans and the AI assistant Claude are collaborating on fundamental biology with the goal of streamlining scientific discoveries.
This lab has already yielded its first major result.
Context: CRISPR Many are familiar with CRISPR, a natural immune system in bacteria. They store fragments of aggressor virus DNA and use the Cas9 protein to find and cut it during subsequent attacks. Humans learned to program this mechanism for any DNA sequence, and it is now the primary tool for gene editing. The discovery of CRISPR earned the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2020.
Claude's Discovery Now, Claude appears to have found something similar in bacteriophages.
Researchers provided only a prompt: find interesting new reverse transcriptases in a massive DNA sequence database. Approximately 950 agents worked for 21 hours, consumed around 210 million tokens, and identified 20 candidate systems, writing a report for each.
Among them was ART, which is structurally very similar to CRISPR. What exactly this system does is still being investigated, but like CRISPR, it likely can cut, copy, or insert DNA. This means it could potentially be programmable and useful for medicine.
Experiments are ongoing. Details are available in the technical preprint.
Why it matters
AnalysisThis highlights the potential of large language models and autonomous agents to accelerate fundamental scientific research by identifying novel biological mechanisms.
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