Owner creates cancer vaccine for his rescue dog despite no medical background

An Australian man has developed a cancer vaccine for his dog. For someone even with a medical background, that is a huge feat. However, Paul Conyngham is a tech entrepreneur and still managed to do the unthinkable. After his dog Rose was given a terminal cancer diagnosis, he was left devastated. Paul told Australia’s Today program that Rose was with him through tough times, and he wanted to do his part in helping her. So he designed a personalised mRNA cancer vaccine for his 8-year-old rescue dog. He has no medical background, and so he relied on what he did know - his skills in machine learning and data analysis. He used the AI tool ChatGPT and AlphaFold, an AI program, to create a personalised cancer vaccine for his dog. Both together analysed the protein structures linked to cancer and created a sequence. The Australian reported that the AI-derived sequence generated by Paul was given to the RNA Institute, University of New South Wales (UNSW), and the scientists here used it to manufacture the vaccine for Rose.

AI for cancer vaccines and treatment

UNSW Professor Pall Thordarson, the director of the RNA Institute, told Today that the vaccine was ready in less than two months, and it was a success. Paul said that the vaccine "pushed back about 75 per cent of the cancer." Rose is a Staffordshire bull terrier who had large tumours on one of her back legs. She was diagnosed with mast cell cancer and had only a few months left. Paul turned to AI and sequenced the tumour DNA, which revealed the mutations that could be targeted. The data was used to search for the problem in her DNA, and "then develop a cure based off that, and ChatGPT assisted throughout the entire process," Conyngham told Today.

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The vaccine started showing visible results in Rose in about a month. Her mobility and behaviour improved, Paul told Today. He said, "She started to shut down and be a bit sad" at the start of December. But by the end of January, "she was jumping over a fence to chase a rabbit." Paul said the vaccine "shrunk it all down. There was just a little bit (of cancer) that didn’t respond." What Paul managed to do shows how AI could be used to help design treatments for medical problems.