Anthropic Launches Claude Science for Research Automation

What happened

Anthropic has released Claude Science, a new software product designed to help scientists automate research tasks, particularly in biology and chemistry. The tool integrates existing Claude AI models with over 60 scientific databases and specialized skills for lab research. It is initially focused on pharmaceutical drug discovery but has potential applications in other scientific fields.

Why it matters

Claude Science aims to simplify complex, multi-step tasks and provide answers in plain language. It is designed to build on what scientists find useful about Anthropic's products, writing code and helping scientists run it on powerful computer clusters. The software prioritizes reproducibility, allowing scientists to trace back the source of any figure or result.

Key context

Claude Science is Anthropic's newest flagship product and is available to all paid Claude subscribers. It is a full-featured, standalone product. The release signifies the importance of scientific applications to Anthropic's mission. A researcher used Claude Science to analyze 490 papers on zoonotic spillover, finding the field's working vocabulary was four times richer than its formal ontologies. This experiment cost twenty-six dollars and change. The launch demo involved a drug-discovery campaign to stabilize an enzyme behind phenylketonuria.

What to watch next

It is unclear if Anthropic's Opus 4.5 model and Opus 4.8 model refer to the same or different versions. The exact year for the Tuesday roll-out of Claude Science is not explicitly stated in all sources. It is also uncertain if the capability of agents powered by LLMs, including Anthropic's Opus model series, to perform useful, independent work in late 2025 is directly tied to the release of Claude Science.