Claude helps discover novel enzyme system, actual function still awaits verification

Anthropic announced that its biolab in the San Francisco Bay Area, with the help of Claude, has discovered a previously undescribed enzyme system. This system is primarily found in bacteriophages that infect bacteria and consists of reverse transcriptase, accompanying genes, and regularly arranged DNA repeats. It has been named the Array-associated Reverse Transcriptase system (ART). The company stated that Claude dispatched approximately 950 agents over about 21 hours, analyzed over 200,000 reverse transcriptases, and screened 3,500 candidate systems, consuming 210 million tokens in total, ultimately identifying ART's unusual repeat sequences. However, existing experiments only show that these sequences can generate various short RNAs. Anthropic has not yet determined ART's biological function, nor has it proven that the system can directly perform DNA cutting, copying, or pasting. Therefore, it cannot yet be regarded as a mature new CRISPR tool. Anthropic noted that all culturing, testing, and equipment operations were carried out by human scientists, and Claude did not directly control the experimental instruments. Its lab only conducts BSL-1 and BSL-2 level research and does not handle pathogens capable of infecting humans. The company has released a preprint for external researchers to verify the novelty and potential applications of the findings.