Three months after receiving a personalized mRNA cancer vaccine designed with AI chatbots, two cancerous areas on Rosie the dog's legs have returned to what appears normal. Her owner, Australian AI consultant Paul Conyngham, has now confirmed he intends to make the process available to others. "I have spent the last week speaking to everyone involved to understand whether it really is possible to make this process more scalable," he wrote. "We believe it is."
Conyngham described the reaction to his story - published in a detailed thread on X - as overwhelming, with thousands of messages from people whose dogs face similar diagnoses, "Hvylya" reports.
The barriers Conyngham encountered over two years illustrate why the process remains out of reach for most pet owners. Genomic sequencing of Rosie's DNA required driving tissue samples personally from the veterinarian to the Garvan Institute, then couriering extracted DNA to the UNSW Ramaciotti Centre. Ethics approval consumed 120 hours of paperwork. The University of New South Wales could manufacture the vaccine but lacked a process for an "n=1" trial - creating one from scratch would have taken until mid-2026. The only thing that kept the timeline alive was a connection to Dr. Mari Maeda of the U.S.-based Canine Cancer Alliance. Maeda linked Conyngham with Professor Rachel Allavena at the University of Queensland, whose existing trial approval bypassed the need to create new protocols from scratch.
Even the science hit dead ends before the mRNA approach emerged. A genetic algorithm search discovered a promising ligand in simulation, but lab validation would have taken years. Docking a library of over one million pre-existing ligands produced a match, but the compound was patented and the patent holder declined compassionate use. "It really felt like we had exhausted the space and it just was not meant to be," Conyngham wrote.
The mRNA pivot came on the advice of Dr. Deborah Burnett at UNSW, who had experience with mRNA vaccines though not specifically with the peptide neoantigen approach Conyngham initially considered. The vaccine was manufactured in six weeks by Professor Pall Thordarson's team and administered at the University of Queensland after a 10-hour drive - plus an unexpected additional four hours to reach the campus.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who met Conyngham this week, wrote that the story "immediately got me thinking 'this should be a company.'" Conyngham's response suggests he agrees. "It started with one dog," he wrote. "It will not end with one."
Earlier, "Hvylya" covered how OpenAI's chief scientist described a workplace revolution where AI has fundamentally changed how professionals operate.