Claude autonomously designed 17 molecules that bind scorpion venom neurotoxins in Claude Science
In Anthropic's Claude Science environment, Claude autonomously completed an entire round of protein design as an agent: it selected the attack sites on scorpion venom neurotoxins on its own, drove 12 protein design programs, set scoring thresholds, and selected 180 molecules from the 318,484 generated to send for physical synthesis; of the 211 designs tested by Adaptyv Bio and Twist Bioscience, 17 successfully bound the target toxin. The request was made by Citrini Research, a financial firm with no laboratory or protein expertise. Anthropic did not call it an antivenom serum because the tests needed to support that claim have not yet been conducted.
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This item provides the key figures and validation results for the agent autonomously completing protein design, and also clarifies the boundary that antivenom serum validation has not yet been done.
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View original postNew on our Science Blog: designing protein binders against scorpion neurotoxins. Scorpions sting about 1.2m people every year, and antivenoms are often costly or in short supply. Claude has made an early step toward finding new treatments. https://t.co/l6LgdEqM7I
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New on our Science Blog: designing protein binders against scorpion neurotoxins. Scorpions sting about 1.2m people every year, and antivenoms are often costly or in short supply. Claude has made an early step toward finding new treatments. https://t.co/l6LgdEqM7I
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Claude did the protein scientist’s job and came back with 17 molecules that grip scorpion neurotoxins.
Claude, running as an agent inside Anthropic’s Claude Science setup, ran the whole protein-design campaign itself:
it picked which patch of each scorpion toxin to attack, drove 12 protein-design programs, set its own scoring cutoffs, and chose 180 molecules out of the 318,484 it generated for physical synthesis, and 17 of the 211 designs tested bound their toxin at Adaptyv Bio and Twist Bioscience.
Citrini Research, a finance firm with no lab and no protein expertise, asked for this work, and Claude designed proteins that two labs confirmed latch onto scorpion venom toxins.
Scorpion stings kill more than 3,250 people a year, so the prize is real, if this method works. However, Anthropic is not calling this an antivenom, because the test that would justify the word has not been run yet.