Today we announced the Claude-led discovery of a molecular machine that we suspect could represent a new gene editing mechanism. Its precise function, biotechnological utility (if any), or level of significance is not yet clear, but at minimum it is work I would have been proud to do as a PhD student. The work was done mostly, though not entirely, by Claude: our life sciences team suggested a broad area of research, Claude read through the literature and a bunch of genome data and discovered something interesting, then Claude proposed experiments to verify the discovery and our team carried them out.
It’s easy to dismiss this as a one-off or curiosity, but we’ve repeatedly seen a pattern where AI performance in new intellectual domains goes from weak to superhuman in a matter of a few years. In 2023 models struggled to do math at the level of an average high-school student. In 2024 they started to do well on math competitions for the best high-schoolers in the country, in 2025 they started to solve minor open problems, in early 2026 more significant open problems, and in late 2026 they are beginning to solve the top few open problems in all of mathematics. We believe AI for biology is on a similar exponential trend.
The main difference between biology and mathematics, of course, is that math can be done purely theoretically, while biology requires experimentation. Some have used this to draw the conclusion that AI’s utility in biology will be limited. We think this is wrong. As we’ve demonstrated today, humans can collaborate with AI to perform the experiments, validate key results in a few weeks and, if necessary, work with the AI to iterate on what they find. Eventually it may even be possible for Claude itself to safely perform the experiments by autonomously controlling lab equipment, with appropriate safeguards in place, but we aren’t doing that today (our lab is also a BSL1/BSL2 facility that doesn't handle materials dangerous to humans).
More broadly, biomedical advancement has many stages — from fundamental biology discoveries, to translational research, to drug discovery, clinical trials, and finally the actual delivery of medicines and health care to patients. We are also interested in these later stages, but even simply accelerating the first stage of fundamental biological discoveries has the potential to speed up and broaden the entire pipeline. Improving our understanding of biology and sharpening biologists’ tools can drive forward all of the later stages, for example by identifying new drug targets, finding new therapeutic modalities, allowing for more precise measurement, and speeding up the experimental loop which itself further accelerates our understanding of biology. This will not in itself speed up clinical trial times, but if it succeeds it could greatly increase the number of promising candidates that go into the pipeline — an increase in throughput even though latency remains.
In Machines of Loving Grace, I wrote about AI’s potential to “cure most diseases in 5-10 years” — a goal that sounds impossible, but one I believe is just barely possible if AI is applied to every stage of the pipeline. The first step is showing that AI can first help with, and then drive, biological discoveries.
Claude’s discovery is the latest in a line of related prior work that goes back decades, beginning with systems like CRISPR, and continuing with discoveries like the bridge recombinase and VIPR in the past few years. Recently, there has been heightened interest in systems based on reverse transcriptase (RT) enzymes, the enzyme underlying the system Claude identified. And most recently, a Stanford team working independently described a novel RT system with an associated non-coding array that is in some ways similar to the one Claude found, though they are distinct systems that evolved independently from each other. I believe that we’re at the very beginning of finding such systems and developing them into powerful tools for biotechnology.
I’m proud of the resources Anthropic has invested in accelerating the public benefits of AI through the life sciences, and we’re aiming both to grow our life sciences team and to work with other scientists to extend this approach to a broad range of problems. If you have a proposal for a research collaboration or are interested in joining our life sciences team, please reach out.
We spend so much time waiting for the next chapter that we forget to appreciate the chapter we're living right now. Look around.
There may already be more to be grateful for than you realize
Some people still don’t understand that the little things they do everyday that they think doesn’t matter does have some serious long lasting consequences.
Never in the history of mankind have I ever heard that a company that makes a particular product admits that what they’re making is a threat to its consumers.
Even the companies that make guns and other ammunitions including atomic weapons has never admitted that their product is a threat to humanity.
But recently I’ve been seeing these posts on how people have to quit they’re jobs at AI companies after realizing that what they’re working on is a killer product and they don’t want to be part of something that ends up wiping humans from the face of the earth.
Then a few days ago companies that make AI openly admitted that what they’re building is a threat not only to its users, but the entire human race and the planet itself.
At first I didn’t want to give it so much thought but today has me thinking about it, what really went wrong? And how long have these companies battled with this such that not only one or two but almost all the companies come online to openly warn us about what they’re building?
God sees what’s limiting you. He knows the secret struggles, the things you’ve tried to overcome, you want to change but haven’t been able to. He’s going to step in and help you do what you couldn’t do.
Listen to this message from Joel! "Winning Private Battles": https://t.co/v5OAg8hxlL
@CocoAfrica69 I don’t normally wait until I’m done with my adult stuff before smoking, once it’s smoking o’clock, I’m leaving everything behind except if it’s something I can do while smoking otherwise nothing comes between me and my weed.
Time does move fast. Barely two decades ago a movie could mean a pile of discs; that’s one film, one disc, two or even more it was a long one. Later they started packing a whole shelf onto one disc. Fast forward to this day the same thing sits in your palm. You can stream it, download it and watch it anywhere in the world. Big thanks to the scientists and engineers who made this possible
@unkonfined Facts. Actions usually speaks louder than just mere words. And this is the reason I don’t usually accept thank you from people whenever I gift 🎁 them; let your actions afterwards speak for you instead.
Thread:
After everything I’ve been through over the years, I’ve come to the conclusion that:
Constantly thinking about your dreams 24/7 is romanticized nonsense.
It sounds passionate until six months later when you’re still lying awake at 3 a.m. spiraling about every possible failure, turning your brain into a pressure cooker. That’s not fuel — that’s self-sabotage wearing a motivational hoodie.
The subconscious needs space to chew on problems while you’re sleeping, walking the dog, or laughing at memes or any other thing out there. Some of the best ideas come when you’re not actively forcing them.
But here’s the non-negotiable part:
You still show up every single day like the dream owes you money. Not because you’re “feeling it,” but because the version of you that shows up is the only one who gets to collect later.
James Clear’s Atomic Habits nailed it — identity beats motivation. You become the person who writes 300 words, trains the extra set, makes the cold call, ships the ugly draft… even on days your brain is screaming “why bother?”
The sweet spot I see in people who actually make it is that, during the work block: you’re all in. Your phone is another room, full focus, zero distractions; That’s when the dream gets your best energy. The rest of the time: you deliberately detach.
Play football, cook something spicy, argue with strangers online about pineapple on pizza — whatever resets the nervous system. The dream is still running in the background though cause your brain is ridiculously good at that, but you’re not babysitting it.
The ones who win aren’t the ones who never stop thinking about it. They’re the ones who never stop showing up when thinking feels pointless. Consistency without obsession. Obsession without burnout. It’s a boring answer until you realize it actually works for decades, not just the first excited 90 days.
So for you who is reading this right now my advice to you is:
Pick the smallest daily action that moves the dream forward (not the sexiest one — the one you can do even when you feel like trash). Do it. Then go live your best life like the dream isn’t the only thing that matters. Because it isn’t. You are. Keep showing up. The dream will catch up. It always does when the person chasing it refuses to ghost💪🔥