Anthropic Unveils CRISPR-Like Enzyme System Found by Claude in 21 Hours
Updated
Updated · TechCrunch · Sep 23
Anthropic Unveils CRISPR-Like Enzyme System Found by Claude in 21 Hours
3 articles · Updated · TechCrunch · Sep 23
Summary
Anthropic said its Bay Area wet lab has identified a previously unknown enzyme system in bacteriophage DNA that can cut, copy and paste DNA in ways reminiscent of CRISPR.
21 hours of work by about 950 Claude agents, using 210 million tokens, produced the finding only months after the lab was established this spring.
Human scientists, not Claude, performed the physical experiments, and Anthropic said the lab is limited to BSL-1 and BSL-2 research and does not handle pathogens that infect humans.
Dario Amodei said the result still needs broader scientific validation and noted Stanford had earlier found a system similar in some respects.
The announcement highlights Anthropic's push into AI-driven biology even as Amodei and other AI leaders have warned advanced models could pose bioterrorism and broader safety risks.