September 26, 2026
AI agents discover an unknown enzyme system: 950 agents in 21 hours
On Sep 23, around 950 Claude agents used 210 million tokens over 21 hours to discover ART, an enzyme system whose function remains unknown. The agents examined more than 200,000 reverse transcriptases, selected 3,500 candidates, and narrowed the search to 20 systems.
Anthropic says this kind of genomic-data analysis previously took weeks or months. Now Claude Science and Claude Code processed the sequence dataset in 21 hours: these are the same tools the company's customers use.
The search is not the answer. ART consists of a reverse transcriptase, a neighboring gene, and DNA repeats. Initial experiments found short RNAs, while the system's function remains unknown: the Sep 23 preprint has not yet undergone peer review.
The next step for ART is experiments to determine the function of the discovered system.
