Anthropic shared on November 4 how its biology research team worked with Claude to map the first three-dimensional structure of a vault particle from bacterial life. Vaults are hollow, barrel-shaped protein assemblies — among the largest structures in human cells — first identified in 1986, whose biological purpose is still unknown.

The team searched roughly 15 billion predicted protein sequences for distant relatives, finding candidates across 29 major bacterial groups and four archaeal groups, and tested 44 in the laboratory. A phage-derived protein called L05 assembled into a complete vault of 96 copies of itself, about 54 nanometres long and enclosing roughly 25 percent more volume than mammalian vaults.

Claude contributed throughout, from protein searches and DNA design to purification and microscopy analysis: a chromatography approach cut isolation from about three days to roughly 90 minutes, and the first complete cryo-EM model emerged within 34 hours, against weeks conventionally. Anthropic also documents the failures — an additive that interfered with DNA delivery cost two weeks, and Claude produced an inaccurate map after skipping a standard processing step — both corrected under closer supervision.