We ran a randomized controlled trial to see if LLMs can help novices perform molecular biology in a wet-lab.

The results: LLMs may help in some aspects, but we found no significant increase at the core tasks end-to-end. That's lower than what experts predicted.

Our findings 🧵 The study was the largest and longest of its kind: 153 participants with minimal lab experience over 8 weeks – randomized to LLM and Internet-only.

They tried 5 laboratory tasks, 3 of which are central to a viral reverse genetics workflow. No protocols given — just an objective.