❤️ A Data Analyst Used ChatGPT to Create a Cancer Vaccine for His Dog

Rosie only had a few months left to live. In 2024, she was diagnosed with an aggressive mast cell tumor. Chemotherapy was not helping, but her owner, Sydney tech entrepreneur and data analyst Paul Conyngham, did not give up and turned to ChatGPT.

The bot suggested trying personalized immunotherapy, even though such methods are still highly experimental. Conyngham then reached out to the Ramaciotti Centre for Genomics at the University of New South Wales, where researchers sequenced Rosie's DNA. They sequenced DNA from a healthy sample and from the tumor.

👨‍💻 Using several tools, Conyngham compared the two sequences himself to find the mutations behind the cancer. He then used the AI model AlphaFold to identify the protein believed to drive the disease, select a treatment target, and identify the right drug.

Scientists were impressed by Paul's persistence. After one pharmaceutical company refused to provide the selected drug for Rosie's treatment, the team at the UNSW RNA Institute decided to synthesize a personalized mRNA vaccine to save her.

💡 After a course of injections, one of Rosie's tumors shrank by up to 75%. She got her energy back and became more active — it was as if life had returned to her.

🔍 The technology was used for the first time to create a cancer vaccine for a dog, says Professor Pall Thordarson, Director of the UNSW RNA Institute.

"This is still at the frontier of where cancer immunotherapeutics are—and ultimately, we're going to use this for helping humans," the professor says.

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