On September 27, computational biologist Mario Rodríguez Mestre said his team had identified the specific array-associated reverse transcriptase (ART) enzyme about a year before Anthropic’s September 23 announcement. He also said he had shared dissertation and manuscript drafts with Claude. Anthropic said Claude was not trained on user transcripts and that its molecular biology team had no access to them.
Mestre says his team identified ART earlier
Mestre said he and his colleagues had studied the enzymes for four years and identified the specific ART enzyme about a year before Anthropic announced its finding. He also reported using Claude during his research and sharing drafts with it.
Anthropic’s statement addressed two points: user transcripts were not used to train Claude, the company said, and its molecular biology team had no access to them.
What Anthropic says Claude identified
Anthropic describes ART as a reverse transcriptase (RT) associated with a nearby partner gene and a long array of evenly spaced DNA repeats. RTs copy RNA into DNA. The underlying RT had appeared in earlier studies, according to Anthropic; the company says the associated repeat array and accessory protein were the features its agents identified together. Anthropic says the systems occur mainly in bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria.
In initial experiments, Anthropic says the array was expressed as distinct short RNAs. The system’s biological function remains under investigation, the company says.
Two accounts of the research timeline
Anthropic says its team found ART in raw data from a 2022 study in which Mestre was not involved. Mestre, meanwhile, says his team had identified the specific enzyme earlier. His account and the company’s description concern different parts of the research timeline.
How Anthropic describes Claude’s search
Anthropic reports that roughly 950 agents searched for 21 hours, using 210 million tokens. The company says they gathered more than 200,000 RTs, identified 3,500 candidate systems and selected 20 for detailed reports. Anthropic says human scientists supplied the initial prompt and performed all laboratory work, while the agents searched for and evaluated candidates.
