Overview
- Anthropic published a preprint on Wednesday announcing that its Claude model identified a previously uncharacterized system in bacteriophage DNA that the company named ART.
- ART combines a reverse transcriptase enzyme, an adjacent accessory protein, and a long array of evenly spaced non‑coding DNA repeats that resemble the guide arrays seen in CRISPR systems.
- The discovery followed a roughly 21‑hour multi‑agent run in which about 950 Claude agents processed roughly 210 million tokens to screen more than 200,000 reverse transcriptase sequences and narrow candidates for human review.
- Human researchers in Anthropic’s Bay Area BSL‑1/2 wet lab performed follow‑up experiments that showed the repeat array is transcribed into distinct short RNAs but did not establish the system’s biological function or any programmable activity.
- Anthropic framed the result as an early example of AI‑accelerated discovery, outside experts called the finding intriguing, and independent groups and further experiments are needed to confirm function, safety and any practical biotech use.