Anthropic launches AI tool to speed up drug discovery

AMERICAN AI developer Anthropic has developed an intelligent tool, Claude Science, to assist researchers with drug discovery, particularly in single-cell RNA sequencing analysis and CRISPR screen design.

Since the US recently lifted the export ban on Anthropic’s AI tools, the company has re-released several of its powerful AI tools, including the most updated versions of Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5.

Claude Science will gather tools needed for genomics, single-cell and proteomics analysis and put them in a “single research environment”.

Eric Kauderer-Abrams, Anthropic’s head of life sciences, said: “We’re doing this because we believe first and foremost that to build the right models, products and tools to accelerate the industry, we need to live it along with all of you.”

Research functions

Anthropic describes Claude Science as an “AI workbench for scientists”. Researchers can work with the app’s AI agent to process the data inputted, which includes 3D protein structures and genome browser tracks.

For large-scale analysis, Anthropic says that the app can draft out a plan for research which can be adaptable to individual computing resources.

The company maintains that the model provides an “assistant” function, where researchers can critique and feedback to the software when creating and visualising data.

Academic welcome

The app has already been used by researchers for single-cell RNA and protein research according to Anthropic.

AI tools have been employed rapidly in drug discovery and life sciences research over the past decade, with researchers having already used tools developed by Anthropic.

Michael Pollastri, a researcher at Northeastern University, said: “If Claude Science is able to automate so much of the information gathering and help inform the ultimate decisions about where to go next, it would increase the pace of our experimentation by orders of magnitude.”