Anthropic reports that its AI model Claude discovered a previously unknown enzyme system in DNA databases. The artificial intelligence performed most of the analysis independently after humans provided the initial research question and conducted physical lab experiments. The newly identified system shares similarities with the gene editing tool CRISPR.
This project marks one of the first major discoveries originating from Anthropic's Bay Area biology laboratory. The facility officially opened in the spring of 2026. Approximately 950 separate AI agents dedicated 21 hours to analyzing more than 200,000 reverse transcriptases. These specific enzymes naturally convert RNA back into DNA.
The AI agents located repeating DNA sequences positioned right next to an unusual enzyme. Researchers named this newly found system ART. The ART system appears predominantly inside bacteriophages, which are viruses that infect bacteria. Scientists do not yet know the biological function of ART.
Lucas Harrington offers a different perspective on the announcement. He earned his doctorate under Nobel laureate Jennifer Doudna, who co-discovered the CRISPR-Cas9 system. Harrington also co-founded Mammoth Biosciences alongside Doudna. Mammoth routinely utilizes genome mining techniques to search for new CRISPR systems.
Harrington took to the social media platform X to share his critique. He pointed out that this particular computational method has existed for decades. Similar biological systems have been documented in scientific literature since 2008. He emphasized that determining the actual function of a discovered system remains the hardest part of the process, and Anthropic has not yet demonstrated what ART actually does. Presenting preliminary findings as a major breakthrough creates unhelpful hype, according to Harrington.
The current phase involves further study to determine the biological purpose of the ART system discovered by Claude.
