Man Successfully Designs mRNA Vaccine To Treat His Dog’s Cancer

The happy saga of Australian tech entrepreneur Paul Conyngham and his dog Rosie is all over the internet. Conyngham’s 8-year-old rescue dog, Rosie, was diagnosed with a fatal skin cancer. Instead of accepting Rosie’s allegedly inevitable demise, Conyngham turned to artificial intelligence (both ChatGPT and Grok) to see if he could figure out how to create a personalized anti-cancer vaccine.

Conyngham reached out to Martin Smith, the director of the University of New South Wales (UNSW) Ramaciotti Centre for Genomics, to genetically sequence the DNA from both Rosie and her tumor. They agreed, and Conyngham paid $3,000 for the sequences. (It’s worth noting that San Diego–based Element Biosciences soon plans to offer whole genome sequencing for $100.) Then he used Google’s DeepMind AlphaFold and ChatGPT to analyze the genetic information and to identify mutated proteins produced by the tumors.

Next Conyngham used Grok to design an mRNA vaccine that boosts the production of tumor-associated antigens enabling Rosie’s immune system to identify and destroy tumor cells. Once he had the vaccine recipe, he contacted Pall Thordarson, head of UNSW’s RNA Institute, to see if the institute would synthesize the vaccine for him. They agreed. Amazing, right?!

Now for the maddening part: “The red tape was actually harder than the vaccine creation, and I was trying to get an Australian ethics approval to run a drug trial on Rosie,” Conyngham told The Australian. “It took me three months, putting two hours aside every single night just typing up this 100-page document.”

And even then he couldn’t get permission for the researchers at UNSW to inject the bespoke vaccine. But why have bioethical bureaucrats involved at all? It’s a personalized vaccine that would have absolutely no effects on any person or animal other than Rosie. Additionally, the patient is a dog. Surely Conyngham was sufficiently competent to provide whatever “informed consent” was needed for Rosie.

Rachel Allavena, a canine immunotherapy professor at the University of Queensland, had experience obtaining bioethical approval for experimental immunotherapies, so she was able to cut through the paperwork, reported the New York Post. Conyngham and Rosie traveled to Brisbane, where the vaccine was injected in December.

The good news is that the vaccine has shrunk Rosie’s tumors, and she has become more of her old energetic self.

“It raises the question, if we can do this for a dog, why aren’t we rolling this out to all humans with cancer?” Smith told the New York Post.

That’s a really good question.