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Thrilled to share new work from our experimental biology lab at @AnthropicAI. Led by world-class biochemist Januka Athukoralage, we built a rapid method for the isolation and structural characterization of vaults. It turns out these massive structures are not just found in eukaryotic cells, but also in prokaryotes and even phages. We solve the structure of one of these phage vaults, and then demonstrate we can engineer additional repeats into the wall to make it bigger.
One thing I can't get over about these vaults. They seem to be widespread across life - we assembled them from 8 different bacteria and bacteriophages. But they are just so massive - bigger than ribosomes, AAV, and even some phage capsids. Why devote so much energy to making these huge complexes? They have to be doing something useful - I hope that's the question that gets answered next.
Amazing collaboration with @PeterHYoon, @amirshanehsaz, @eric_kabrams, and @mgdurrant! Grateful to our team for making Claude an amazing labmate and to Anthropic for supporting this type of work on fundamental biology.
Natural mysteries abound - let's get to solving them!
Links here:
Blog: anthropic.com/research/inves…
Technical report: www-cdn.anthropic.com/76e55fbe85697a…
One thing I can't get over about these vaults. They seem to be widespread across life - we assembled them from 8 different bacteria and bacteriophages. But they are just so massive - bigger than ribosomes, AAV, and even some phage capsids. Why devote so much energy to making these huge complexes? They have to be doing something useful - I hope that's the question that gets answered next.
Amazing collaboration with @PeterHYoon, @amirshanehsaz, @eric_kabrams, and @mgdurrant! Grateful to our team for making Claude an amazing labmate and to Anthropic for supporting this type of work on fundamental biology.
Natural mysteries abound - let's get to solving them!
Links here:
Blog: anthropic.com/research/inves…
Technical report: www-cdn.anthropic.com/76e55fbe85697a…
