San Francisco, September 24, 2026: Researchers at Anthropic have announced the discovery of a previously uncharacterised biological system identified with assistance from the company's Claude artificial-intelligence models. The system contains repeating DNA sequences with features reminiscent of patterns associated with CRISPR, the gene-editing technology that has become an important tool in modern biology.
Anthropic says the discovery is an early result from its new life-sciences research programme, which combines AI-based analysis of large biological datasets with laboratory experiments conducted by human scientists. The company has named the newly identified system array-associated reverse transcriptases (ART).
The system is built around a reverse transcriptase (RT), an enzyme that can copy RNA into DNA. While the underlying RT had previously been identified in scientific research, Anthropic says Claude detected a broader combination of features around it that had not previously been recognised as a distinct system.
ART appears mainly in bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria. The system contains three notable components: the reverse transcriptase, a neighbouring partner gene and a long array of regularly spaced DNA repeat sequences. The repeat arrangement is one of the characteristics that prompted comparisons with CRISPR-related systems.
However, researchers have not yet established exactly what ART does in nature. Further laboratory experiments are underway to determine its biological function and whether the system could eventually have applications in biotechnology.
Anthropic says Claude agents searched through a very large collection of DNA sequences looking for unusual reverse-transcriptase systems.
According to the company's account, approximately 950 AI agents worked for 21 hours, using around 210 million tokens while analysing the data. The system initially collected more than 200,000 reverse transcriptases and generated thousands of candidate systems before narrowing the investigation to a much smaller group for detailed analysis.
The AI identified an unusual pattern of repeated DNA sequences next to a reverse-transcriptase gene. Human researchers subsequently reviewed the finding and conducted laboratory experiments to investigate it.
This workflow illustrates a developing model of scientific research in which AI is used to examine datasets at a scale that can be difficult to handle manually, while human scientists remain responsible for experimental validation and interpretation.
Anthropic says its scientists have already conducted initial experiments on ART. The early results indicate that the DNA repeat array is expressed as a collection of short RNAs, although the significance of this observation is not yet known.
The company has established a molecular-biology laboratory in the San Francisco Bay Area as part of its wider life-sciences research programme. Anthropic says its current laboratory work is limited to lower-level biosafety research and does not involve pathogens capable of infecting humans.
CRISPR became a powerful biotechnology platform after scientists recognised unusual repeated DNA sequences in bacteria and subsequently determined how associated molecular systems could be used for programmable genetic manipulation.
The newly identified ART system is not being described as a new CRISPR technology. Instead, its repeated DNA pattern and association with a reverse transcriptase have characteristics that make it scientifically interesting and worthy of further investigation.
Scientists will need additional experiments and independent research before the system's biological role or any possible practical applications can be established.
