Claude designs scorpion antivenom proteins from scratch

anthropic's claude, largely autonomously, generated 318,484 protein binder designs targeting five toxins from four scorpion species. after initial prompting, claude worked for 24 hours before the research team provided additional instructions. claude selected 180 candidates, and the team added 31 more, testing 211 designs in the lab. 17 met the criteria for a binder, with two showing extremely tight binding to a toxin from the mexican scorpion. external experts consider this a promising first step, with two independent labs confirming the results.