Anthropic says Claude AI helped discover novel enzyme system - Reuters

Anthropic, an artificial‑intelligence startup, announced that its Claude model was used to identify a previously uncharacterized enzyme system in biological data. The system, which the company has named array‑associated reverse transcriptases (ART), is built around a reverse transcriptase (RT) enzyme that copies RNA into DNA.

Claude examined extensive DNA sequence databases and detected an unusual arrangement of repeating DNA elements surrounding the RT. These repeating sequences resemble the patterned arrays observed in the gene‑editing technology CRISPR, prompting researchers to draw parallels between the two mechanisms.

While the reverse transcriptase itself has been reported in earlier scientific studies, Anthropic said Claude was the first to recognize the broader context of the system, including an array of non‑coding DNA sequences and an additional protein of unknown function that appears to be part of the ART complex.

The discovery follows reports that Anthropic has established a wet‑lab facility in the San Francisco Bay Area, signaling an expansion of its activities into experimental biology and drug‑related research in addition to its existing computational work.

Anthropic described the finding as the inaugural result of its biology research efforts, highlighting the potential of large‑language‑model AI to assist in uncovering novel biological mechanisms.