Anthropic Says Claude Agents Found a CRISPR-Like Enzyme System, but Key Evidence Is Still Pending

Anthropic says Claude agents working inside its new life-sciences group identified a previously uncharacterized enzyme system in bacteriophage DNA, a pattern the company says resembles CRISPR but whose function remains unknown. The announcement is an early test case for AI-assisted biological discovery: a large autonomous search produced a plausible research lead, while outside scrutiny has focused on reproducibility, provenance and whether the public claim is running ahead of the wet-lab evidence.