Anthropic says Claude found an enzyme system resembling CRISPR
Anthropic says Claude identified a previously unknown enzyme system in the DNA of bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria. The company says the system has properties resembling CRISPR and can perform operations such as cutting, copying, and pasting DNA — an interpretation that the broader research community still needs to validate. Claude analyzed about 200,000 enzymes using 950 agents over 21 hours and consuming 210 million tokens; Anthropic says the work was done “mostly, though not entirely,” by the model.
Human scientists conducted the physical experiments at a laboratory in the San Francisco Bay Area, limited to BSL-1 and BSL-2 biosafety levels and without handling pathogens that can infect humans. CEO Dario Amodei said a fully automated lab could be possible in the future with safeguards, but that this is not happening today.
Why it matters · editorial interpretation
The case illustrates how AI agents can help examine large volumes of biological data and propose experimental hypotheses, but Anthropic says the CRISPR-like interpretation still needs validation by the broader research community. Physical experiments remained under human scientists’ supervision and within limited biosafety levels.
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