Protein design
An AI agent ran a protein design pipeline unaided and hit 14 of 15 wet-lab targets
Anthropic reports hit rates of 22.6% to 35.1% against an industry norm of 10-15%, and says the work stays restricted in its public models pending a trusted-access programme.
- Anthropic reported that Claude models designed protein binders that bound successfully against 14 of 15 targets tested in a wet lab, producing 354 confirmed binders from 1,320 designs.
- Running against all targets at once in a 48-hour session, Mythos Preview hit 26.7% and Opus 4.8 hit 22.6%; given 24 hours per individual target, Mythos Preview reached 35.1%, against the 10-15% Anthropic calls typical.
- Against one target, RBX1, the model reached a 40% hit rate versus 3.7% among entrants in an external competition, and its best design outperformed the winner of 245 submissions.
- Anthropic cautions that minibinders are not a standard therapeutic format and that a high-affinity binder is only the first step toward a drug-like molecule.
