Australian Entrepreneur Uses AI and AlphaFold to Create First Bespoke Cancer Vaccine for a Dog
Sydney tech entrepreneur Paul Conyngham used ChatGPT and Google DeepMind's AlphaFold to help design a personalized mRNA cancer vaccine for his dog Rosie after conventional treatments failed. Working with UNSW researchers, the vaccine was created in under two months and significantly shrank most of Rosie's tumors.
When Sydney entrepreneur Paul Conyngham's dog Rosie was diagnosed with cancer that persisted despite chemotherapy and surgery, he turned to AI. Consulting ChatGPT, he was pointed toward immunotherapy and connected with the University of New South Wales Ramaciotti Center for Genomics.
Working with UNSW researchers, Conyngham paid for Rosie's genomic sequencing and used AlphaFold — Google DeepMind's protein structure prediction tool — to identify mutated proteins suitable as treatment targets. Pall Thordarson, director of UNSW's RNA Institute, then created a personalized mRNA vaccine in under two months.
The results were striking. Following injections in December and February, most of Rosie's tumors significantly shrank. While not a complete cure, the treatment substantially improved her quality of life. As Conyngham described it, 'six weeks post-treatment, I was at the dog park when she spotted a rabbit and jumped the fence to chase it.'
The case demonstrates how AI tools originally built for research — ChatGPT for information retrieval, AlphaFold for protein analysis — can be combined by a determined non-specialist to navigate cutting-edge science. It also highlights the potential for personalized mRNA cancer vaccines, a paradigm that could eventually extend to human oncology at scale.