Anthropic has unveiled the first discovery from its newly established molecular biology research programme, saying its Claude AI model identified a previously unknown enzyme system with characteristics reminiscent of CRISPR. The company announced the development on September 23, 2026, alongside details of a new life sciences research group and laboratory in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The enzyme system, named ART, was identified primarily in bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria. According to Anthropic, the system consists of three main components: a reverse transcriptase enzyme, a neighbouring partner gene and a long array of evenly spaced DNA repeats. The arrangement of these repeats resembles the CRISPR arrays found in bacterial defence systems.
Anthropic said around 950 Claude-powered agents searched DNA sequence databases for about 21 hours as part of the research. The agents examined more than 200,000 genes associated with one type of enzyme and narrowed the search to 20 candidates for closer investigation. The company said this type of analysis could otherwise require scientists weeks or months.
Claude identified the unusual arrangement by analysing DNA sequences, comparing repeat patterns with known reverse-transcriptase systems and searching existing scientific literature for earlier reports of the same pattern. After the analysis, the system generated a report for human researchers to review.
Anthropic’s scientists then conducted laboratory experiments to investigate the system. The company’s initial results indicate that the ART repeat array produces distinct short RNA molecules. However, the precise biological function of the system has not yet been established, and additional experiments are underway.
The company has compared the finding with CRISPR because of the similarities in the arrangement of repeated DNA sequences. CRISPR was originally identified as an unusual repeat pattern in bacterial DNA and later became the basis for widely used gene-editing technologies. Anthropic said the ART system could potentially provide a new biological mechanism, but its applications remain uncertain at this stage.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei described the finding as preliminary and said it may represent a new gene-editing mechanism with possible applications in gene therapy. At the same time, the company has acknowledged that the research requires further validation. The findings have been released as a preprint and have not yet undergone peer review.
Feng Zhang, a CRISPR pioneer and professor at MIT and the Broad Institute, described the repeated DNA fragments identified in the research as intriguing and said they warrant further investigation, according to comments released by Anthropic. Amodei has also noted that Stanford researchers had independently described a comparable, though distinct, biological system.
Anthropic established its life sciences research group in spring 2026 to investigate whether general-purpose AI models could help systematise and accelerate biological discovery. The company built its own laboratory so that computational findings generated with Claude could be followed by physical experiments. Anthropic said its scientists provide the high-level direction and conduct the laboratory experiments, while Claude carries out much of the computational analysis.
The company said its laboratory does not handle pathogens capable of infecting humans. While Anthropic has discussed the possibility of AI eventually operating laboratory equipment under appropriate safeguards, the experiments described in the current research were conducted by human scientists.
The ART discovery represents an early example of Anthropic applying its AI models beyond conventional software and coding tasks to fundamental biological research. For now, the biological role of the newly identified system remains unresolved, with further experiments needed to determine how ART functions and whether it has any practical applications.
