AI · AI today, November 6, 2026
Science
Claude used to probe a 40-year-old cell mystery, with hits and misses
· Aster editorial team
AI-generated imageAn Anthropic biology team used Claude to study vault particles, hollow barrel-shaped capsules first described in 1986 whose function is still unknown. The AI helped pick candidate proteins from about 15 billion predicted ones and process microscope images, and cut a lab step from three days to 90 minutes. It also made mistakes: an additive it recommended delayed the work two weeks, and a map it produced merged the particle with its mirror image. The project took under four months.
Why it matters
It is a concrete example of how much AI can speed up lab work, and why scientists still need to check every step.
For the technical crowd
The results are a preprint, not peer-reviewed or replicated. The particles were made in lab-grown E. coli, so it is unknown whether they form that way in nature. The image analysis required hundreds of GPUs.
· Source: The Neuron
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