Anthropic Says Claude Agents Discovered a Novel CRISPR-Like Enzyme System in Bacteriophage Genomes

Anthropic said its newly formed life sciences research group used a large swarm of Claude agents to identify a previously uncharacterized enzyme system in bacteriophage genomes, in a discovery the company detailed in a post on its site. The finding was also covered by TechCrunch and Quartz.

What Was Found

The system, which Anthropic calls array-associated reverse transcriptases (ART), consists of a reverse transcriptase enzyme, an accessory protein of unknown function sitting beside it, and a long array of evenly spaced, non-coding DNA repeat sequences. That repeat structure resembles the arrays used by CRISPR systems, which store a bank of RNA guides that make CRISPR-based gene editing tools programmable. Anthropic says it has not yet determined what ART actually does, and describes further experiments as underway to establish its biological function.

How the Discovery Was Made

According to Anthropic's account, roughly 950 Claude agents ran in parallel for about 21 hours, consuming approximately 210 million tokens. The agents screened more than 200,000 reverse transcriptases pulled from genomic data, narrowed that pool to about 3,500 candidate systems, and ultimately selected the 20 most compelling candidates for detailed follow-up analysis. Anthropic describes the workflow as researcher-directed: its life sciences team pointed Claude at a broad research area, the model worked through literature and genome data to surface candidates, and it proposed experiments that researchers could use to verify the findings.

Outside Reaction

CRISPR pioneer Feng Zhang of MIT and the Broad Institute described the discovery as “an exciting example of how AI agents can contribute to biological discovery.” His comment provides outside perspective on a finding that, at this stage, has primarily been reported through Anthropic's own research.

Anthropic's New Life Sciences Push

The ART discovery is an early result from a life sciences research group and laboratory Anthropic formed earlier this year in the Bay Area. The group operates alongside the company's existing drug-discovery and biology/chemistry model-training teams. Anthropic says it is now inviting outside scientists to submit research proposals related to ART as it continues investigating the system's function.

Why It Matters

The result is notable less for the biology itself, since ART's function remains unknown, and more for the research methodology. A large-scale swarm of Claude agents screened hundreds of thousands of genomic candidates in under a day, showing how AI agents could accelerate parts of early-stage biological research. The discovery also reflects a broader industry push, involving Google DeepMind and other labs, to use frontier models for early-stage scientific research rather than only coding and office-productivity tasks.