Anthropic says Claude has helped identify a previously uncharacterized biological system in DNA. The project began with a high level prompt asking Claude to search a massive DNA database for unusual reverse transcriptases. From there, roughly 950 Claude agents worked for about 21 hours, examining more than 200,000 reverse transcriptases and narrowing thousands of candidates down to the most promising systems. One agent noticed an unusual array of repeating DNA sequences next to a reverse transcriptase gene. Human scientists then took over the physical work. They reviewed the candidate, performed laboratory experiments, and confirmed that the pattern represented a previously uncharacterized system now called ART, array associated reverse transcriptases. Its structure resembles certain features found in CRISPR systems, but that comparison needs an important caveat: Scientists still do not know exactly what ART does. That makes this early science, not a new gene editing technolog...