# Anthropic says Claude found CRISPR-like enzyme system > Anthropic says Claude identified a DNA-repeat system in bacteriophages that includes a previously known reverse transcriptase. The Next Web reported that the result was difficult to reproduce and that enzyme activity has not been demonstrated. - Publication: Go Big News - By Nifal Adam, Go Big News Staff (Staff News) - Category: AI - Published: 2026-09-25T06:31:31.645+00:00 - Canonical: https://www.gobignews.com/ai/anthropic-says-claude-found-crispr-like-enzyme-system --- [Anthropic](https://anthropic.com) said Claude identified an enzyme system in bacteriophage DNA that includes a long repeating DNA array resembling CRISPR. The company said its search used about 950 Claude agents, roughly 210 million tokens and about 21 hours. Anthropic calls the candidate system array-associated reverse transcriptases, or ART. It consists of a reverse transcriptase, a partner gene and an array of DNA repeats, and the company said it occurs mainly in bacteriophages. The reverse transcriptase itself was identified in prior research, according to The Next Web. Anthropic said its finding was the associated DNA array and partner protein. The company does not yet know ART's function, and said its experimental results are preliminary. Anthropic said the agents narrowed more than 200,000 reverse transcriptases to about 3,500 candidates, then produced human-readable reports on about 20. Human scientists performed all laboratory work in the company's Bay Area lab, which Anthropic said is limited to BSL-1 and BSL-2 work and has no human pathogens. The work used Claude Science and Claude Code. The Next Web reported zero detections across 10 reruns. In fixed tests, it reported a 90% success rate with direct DNA sequences, falling to 32% when agents used files and tools. It also reported that the enzyme's activity has not been demonstrated. MIT professor and CRISPR pioneer Feng Zhang called the finding “genuinely intriguing” and said it was an example of AI agents contributing to biological discovery, according to Anthropic. Anthropic, founded in 2021 and headquartered in San Francisco, describes itself as a Public Benefit Corporation. The company announced a $65 billion Series H in May 2026 at a $965 billion post-money valuation. As [Go Big News reported on September 5](https://www.gobignews.com/ai/anthropic-says-claude-completed-first-lean-fermats-last-theorem-proof), it has also said Claude completed a Lean Fermat's Last Theorem proof. Anthropic announced the ART finding in a post on X and a [company blog post](https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-discovers-novel-enzyme-system). --- ## Companies in this story - Anthropic: https://www.gobignews.com/company/anthropic --- ## X profiles in this story - @anthropicai: https://www.gobignews.com/profile/anthropicai