In 2024, Sydney tech entrepreneur Paul Conyngham found out his dog Rosie had cancer. But after attacking the diagnosis with chemotherapy and surgery, the tumors persisted and Rosie got sicker.
So he turned to AI and eventually developed a custom a mRNA cancer vaccine with the help of Australian scientists. Most of Rosie’s tumors have shrunk, and the dog is back chasing rabbits.
OpenAI’s ChatGPT suggested immunotherapy and directed Conyngham to the University of New South Wales Ramaciotti Center for Genomics, according to a report in the Australian.
While Conyngham doesn’t have a background in medicine, he is an electrical and computing engineer who cofounded Core Intelligence Technologies. He was also a director for the Data Science and AI Association of Australia.
After reaching out to university, he convinced researchers there to help him and paid UNSW for Rosie’s genomic sequencing. Then he started digging into the DNA.
“I went to ChatGPT and came up with a plan on how to do this,” Conyngham told the Australian.
He also used AlphaFold, an AI tool from Google’s DeepMind, to find mutated proteins that could be potential targets for treatment. While an immunotherapy treatment that looked like a good fit for Rosie was identified, the drugmaker wouldn’t provide it.
Then nanomedicine medicine pioneer Pall Thordarson, director of UNSW’s RNA Institute, stepped in and used Conyngham’s data to develop a bespoke mRNA vaccine in less than two months.
“This is the first time a personalized cancer vaccine has been designed for a dog,” he told the Australian. “This is still at the frontier of where cancer immunotherapeutics are—and ultimately, we’re going to use this for helping humans. What Rosie is teaching us is that personalized medicine can be very effective, and done in a time-sensitive manner, with mRNA technology.”
Rosie got her first injection of the cancer treatment this past December, then received a booster in February. Most of her tumors have already shrunk dramatically. And while they haven’t disappeared, Rosie’s health has improved.
In a thread on X Saturday, Thordarson said Rosie’s story demonstrates that technology can “democratize” the process of designing cancer vaccines.
He cautioned that Rosie may not be cured as some tumors haven’t responded to the vaccine, though it bought her more time. Still, Conyngham will take it.
“In December she had low energy because the tumors were creating a huge burden for her,” he told the Australian. “Six weeks post-treatment, I was at the dog park when she spotted a rabbit and jumped the fence to chase it. I’m under no illusion that this is a cure, but I do believe this treatment has bought Rosie significantly more time and quality of life.”
Rosie’s journey has stunned some people in the tech world while also pointing to AI’s potential to produce breakthroughs in medicine, perhaps turning diagnoses once considered death sentences into routine ailments.
Matt Shumer, cofounder and CEO of OthersideAI, took to X over the weekend to flag a story about Conyngham and his dog.
“This is what I mean when I say the world is going to get very weird, very soon,” he wrote. “Expect more stories like this, each sounding increasingly more insane.”
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