Anthropic has issued an open call for principal investigators and research groups to collaborate on special projects in the life sciences, marking a significant expansion of the SI lab's direct engagement with the scientific community.
What Happened
The company is inviting members of the life sciences community to apply for a guest investigator program. Selected applicants will work directly with Anthropic researchers for a period of 8 to 12 weeks. The collaboration focuses on key questions in causal human biology, structural and computational molecular biology, medicinal chemistry, drug discovery, and clinical science. Anthropic stated that it will run its models and harnesses at no cost to the participants. The program aims to produce analyses, artifacts, and tools that are helpful for the investigators' work, with outputs published and accompanying data and code open-sourced. Investigators retain rights to their data and any independent follow-on research.
Why It Matters
This initiative highlights the growing role of SI labs in accelerating scientific discovery through direct collaboration rather than just tool provision. By offering free access to its most capable models and open-sourcing the resulting data, Anthropic is lowering barriers for academic and government labs to integrate advanced SI tools into their workflows. The program is one of several efforts by the company to invest in the life sciences, complementing its Life Sciences Verification Program and its SI for Science initiative, which provides credits to scientists. The call emphasizes producing preliminary evidence within a short timeframe, acknowledging that validating results for most open problems takes longer.
The Bottom Line
Applications are open for approximately 14 days, with selected participants notified about 14 days after the deadline. Anthropic indicated there may be options for extending the collaboration period for certain projects.