Anthropic credits Claude with finding CRISPR-like enzyme system
Anthropic announced on September 24 that its wet biology lab in the Bay Area used Claude to discover a previously unknown enzyme system found in bacteriophage DNA. According to Anthropic, the system shows properties reminiscent of CRISPR and can perform operations such as cutting, copying, and pasting DNA.
The company said the discovery was made “mostly, though not entirely, by Claude.” The effort took Claude 21 hours and involved about 950 agents and 210 million tokens. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei acknowledged on X that the work built on research by others, noting that a Stanford team had previously discovered a system that is in some ways similar to the one Claude found. Anthropic said it will be up to the broader research community to validate how new or significant the discovery is.
Anthropic first confirmed it was operating the wet lab on September 18. The lab was established in spring 2026 and, according to the company, looks like a typical molecular biology lab. It conducts research only at biosafety levels BSL-1 and BSL-2 and does not handle pathogens that can infect humans. All physical lab work is performed by human scientists. Amodei said Claude might eventually perform experiments by autonomously controlling lab equipment with safeguards, but that is not happening today.
