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    "original_url": "https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/09\/27\/science\/anthropic-biology-enzyme-mestre.html?emc=edit_nn_20260928&nl=the-morning&segment_id=227179",
    "parsed_content": "Artificial IntelligenceOpenAI\u2019s Systems Went RogueA.I.-Driven Medical CostsU.S.-China RaceTraining A.I. ModelsReader Questions, AnsweredAdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTSupported bySKIP ADVERTISEMENTDid Anthropic\u2019s A.I. Really Make a Scientific Discovery on Its Own?An expert at the University of Copenhagen said his team had been sharing its research with the company\u2019s A.I. model, Claude, and that its new finding matched their work.Listen \u00b7 10:05 min Share full articleCredit...Jason Henry for The New York TimesBy Carl ZimmerPublished Sept. 27, 2026Updated Sept. 28, 2026, 7:41 a.m. ETSign up for Science Times Get stories that capture the wonders of nature, the cosmos and the human body. Get it sent to your inbox.When Anthropic, the artificial intelligence giant, unveiled findings from its new biology lab last week, its scientists claimed to have used A.I. agents to discover new enzymes with promise for biotechnology.Some scientists were quick to cast doubt on the achievement. Then Mario Rodr\u00edguez Mestre, a computational biologist at the University of Copenhagen, said this weekend that he and his colleagues had been studying the enzymes and their associated molecules \u2014 which Anthropic calls ARTs \u2014 for four years.Dr. Mestre and his colleagues have yet to publish their findings. But for the past three years, they have regularly used Anthropic\u2019s A.I. models as they have written code, drafted manuscripts and performed other tasks.In doing so, Dr. Mestre said he and colleagues shared key findings about the enzymes with Anthropic.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT\u201cSo, for me, the most important question is not \u2018Were ARTs already known?\u2019 They were,\u201d Dr. Mestre said in an interview. The issue instead, he added, is whether Anthropic\u2019s A.I. actually reasoned its way to the results, or whether it was guided to them based partly on his own work.\u201cMy concern is that this information was used to train future versions of the models,\u201d Dr. Mestre said of his own research. \u201cI think it\u2019s important to raise this possibility.\u201dIn a statement on Sunday, Anthropic said: \u201cWe are not aware of any previously published work describing the ART system we recently found. Claude was also not trained on any user transcripts, and our molecular biology team has no such access, either.\u201dAnthropic said that Claude\u2019s key contribution was identifying an array of RNA molecules and a protein associated with reverse transcriptase in a system. But Dr. Mestre said that he and his colleagues had made that discovery over a year ago.Similar worries surfaced recently when researchers at OpenAI claimed to have solved a longstanding mathematics puzzle. A leading mathematician noted that he had been using the company\u2019s A.I. to work toward a solution for some time.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTAnthropic, which is expected to go public at a valuation potentially as high as $2 trillion, has touted biological research as a central part of its mission.\u201cWe believe this type of application will accelerate rapidly in the years ahead, and that we can make profound progress in the near future on diseases that have plagued humanity for millennia,\u201d Dario Amodei, the chief executive of Anthropic, said in a speech to the United Nations on Wednesday.In their report last week, Anthropic researchers said they instructed A.I. agents to search databases containing billions of gene sequences. The scientists did not describe the precise prompts they had used.The databases contain DNA collected from the ocean, soil and other habitats. The genes belong mostly to microbes and viruses; scientists have only determined what a fraction of them do.Anthropic\u2019s scientists tasked the A.I. with finding genes that direct production of enzymes called reverse transcriptases. These enzymes read the sequence of an RNA molecule and make a matching DNA molecule with the same sequence.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTBacteria use some reverse transcriptases to sense invading viruses. Some viruses rely on reverse transcriptases as weapons against other viruses.The Anthropic scientists provided the A.I. with five examples of reverse transcriptases. The agents wrote their own software to explore the databases for similar genes and to look closely at promising candidates.The agents identified genes for possible reverse transcriptases in bacteria-infecting viruses known as jumbo phages. Each of those sequences was located close to an array of genes for RNA molecules, which may help the enzymes carry out their jobs.ImageMr. Amodei delivering remarks via video at a United Nations Security Council meeting in New York last week.Credit...Dave Sanders for The New York TimesThe Anthropic scientists named the enzymes array-associated reverse transcriptases, or ARTs. In a report posted to their website, they said that their A.I. had taken \u201cthe first steps of a biological discovery on its own.\u201dAdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTOn Sunday, Dr. Mestre disputed that claim. \u201cThey are the same systems we have been studying for years,\u201d he said. And they are the same enzymes, he said, that he had described to Anthropic\u2019s A.I.Dr. Mestre first encountered the enzymes in jumbo phages in 2022 while searching for new reverse transcriptases. He worked briefly as a consultant for ReNegade Therapeutics, which filed a patent in 2023 on a number of reverse transcriptases, including the ones Dr. Mestre found. He is listed as a co-inventor on the patent filing.After working for ReNegade, Dr. Mestre joined the University of Copenhagen to study reverse transcriptases in more detail, including the ones he found in jumbo phages. He and his colleagues nicknamed them \u201cjumbotrons.\u201dAnthropic released Claude in 2023, a year after Dr. Mestre began researching jumbotrons. Like many scientists, he found it useful for an assortment of tasks.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT\u201cI completely switched my way of doing science,\u201d he said.During his conversations with Claude, Dr. Mestre shared a draft of both his dissertation and of a manuscript describing jumbotrons. He and his colleagues uploaded additional details while using Claude to perform various administrative tasks.The New York Times reviewed Slack messages, figures and other materials produced by Dr. Mestre documenting his research and his conversations with Claude over the past several years. They seem to show that the A.I. was extensively involved in his research.Seth Shipman, a bioengineer at the Gladstone Institutes and the University of California, San Francisco, said that he was familiar with Dr. Mestre\u2019s work.\u201cWe\u2019ve been talking with him about these for years,\u201d he said. \u201cMany of us know about these systems.\u201dDr. Mestre said he could not be sure that Anthropic had relied on his work to seek out jumbotrons. But he was skeptical, he said, that the A.I. agents could have managed to find them so swiftly.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTImageCredit...Jason Henry for The New York TimesJumbotrons are rare, and their RNA genes are difficult to distinguish from random genetic sequences. Dr. Mestre also found some striking overlap between his work and the work presented by the Anthropic scientists.The scientists claimed that their A.I. had independently retrieved the raw data from a 2022 experiment in which researchers recorded all the viral RNA molecules produced by a microbe infected by jumbo phages.Anthropic\u2019s A.I. reported that the microbes created high levels of the RNA molecules in ARTs. The scientists argue that this evidence supports their hypothesis that the reverse transcriptases they claim to have discovered rely on these RNA molecules to carry out a job for the jumbo phages.Dr. Mestre said that he and his colleagues analyzed the same data a year ago, which helped them identify the RNA genes associated with the jumbotrons. They shared this unpublished information with Claude.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT\u201cThe resemblance was striking to us,\u201d Dr. Mestre said.Without a closer look at what the Anthropic A.I. actually did, Dr. Mestre said that it would be impossible to say for sure that it was guided by his research.\u201cI mean, coincidences happen,\u201d he said. \u201cEveryone in the field is doing more or less the same things. But we were aware of these repeats more than one year ago.\u201dDr. Mestre noted that A.I. companies also have been accused of training models on the work of artists and writers without copyright permission. \u201cIt\u2019s already happened,\u201d he said.Dr. Shipman, of U.C.S.F., said that he and his colleagues, too, have leaned heavily on Anthropic\u2019s tools for their research. \u201cWe\u2019re also telling them what we\u2019re working on,\u201d he said.The company\u2019s announcement last week raised serious concerns among scientists who study these enzymes, he added.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT\u201cI\u2019ve heard from a bunch of people in our field who say, \u2018Uh oh, are they training on my prompts?\u2019\u201d Dr. Shipman said. \u201cWe can\u2019t not think about it.\u201dThe jumbotron controversy echoes another scientific conflict that played out earlier this month. Another artificial intelligence start-up, OpenAI, claimed to have cracked a major unproved problem in math.But the New York University mathematician Tristan Buckmaster, who had been working with a colleague on his own solution, said that they had used OpenAI\u2019s models in their work.In a statement, Dr. Buckmaster raised the possibility that OpenAI had borrowed from their efforts. \u201cIs it ethical to use customer\u2019s data to try to scoop their customer?\u201d he later asked on social media.OpenAI later denied that its models had been trained on Dr. Buckmaster\u2019s conversations. (The New York Times has sued OpenAI and Microsoft, claiming copyright infringement of news content related to A.I. systems. The two companies have denied those claims.)AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTDr. Mestre had become increasingly enthusiastic about using A.I. for his science. Just last month, he began using Claude Science, a new Anthropic A.I. tool tailored to researchers.But after Anthropic\u2019s announcement last week, he is winding down his projects with Claude and shifting to other models.\u201cI\u2019m shutting down everything,\u201d he said.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT",
    "published_at": "2026-09-27T20:57:44+00:00",
    "author_name": "Carl Zimmer",
    "site_name": "The New York Times",
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    "ai_headline": "Did Anthropic\u2019s A.I. Really Make a Scientific Discovery on Its Own?",
    "ai_simplified_title": "Anthropic AI Discovery Questioned by Copenhagen Scientist",
    "ai_excerpt": "Anthropic's claim of an AI-driven scientific discovery is challenged by a University of Copenhagen computational biologist, Mario Rodr\u00edguez Mestre. He asserts that his team had been sharing their research on the same enzymes with Anthropic's AI model, Claude, for years, raising concerns about the AI's independent discovery.",
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