Anthropic’s AI model Claude has discovered a previously unknown biological enzyme system, in what the company calls a major step for AI-driven science. The system is named ART, short for array-associated reverse transcriptase.

The discovery used about 950 Claude agents working together for 21 hours. They scanned more than 1.9 billion protein clusters and processed roughly 210 million tokens of data, Anthropic announced on September 23.

The enzyme was found in bacteriophages, the viruses that infect bacteria. It sits next to repeat arrays that resemble CRISPR, the famous gene-editing tool, though its actual function is still unknown.

Wet-lab experiments were carried out by human scientists, including sequencing of the ART genes. The company released a preprint describing the work, which has not yet been peer-reviewed.

Biologists outside Anthropic welcomed the result. MIT professor Feng Zhang called it impressive, while others cautioned that AI-led science still needs human verification before it can be fully trusted.