How Claude designs protein binders against scorpion venom neurotoxins

Anthropic's life sciences research team had its internal research model Claude design minibinders against scorpion venom neurotoxins in Claude Science; of 211 designs tested in the lab, 17 met its binding criteria. Claude generated 318,484 designs within 64 hours and screened out 180, the team added 31 more, and Adaptyv Bio and Twist Bioscience used SPR to test binding, with a hit rate of 18% for single-toxin designs. The two strongest binders, Cn2-B1 and Cn2-B2, compete for the same epitope as the antibody LR that can neutralize Cn2. The authors state that to their knowledge no de novo designed binders against scorpion venom neurotoxins had been described before. These designs validated binding only against recombinant toxins, have not been tested for neutralization in cellular environments or live animals, and no antivenom is claimed to have been made; Anthropic has released all 211 designs and their data.