While stories of AI being used for notorious purposes are getting more and more frequent, a new update has come in from Australia where a techie used ChatGPT and Google DeepMind’s AlphaFold to make a vaccine for his dog that had just months to live.
The techie named Paul Conyngham explained his story while speaking to the ‘Today’ show. He said, “Rose is my best mate and uh, she’s been with me through really tough times, through a breakup, through hard business deals, walks in the forest and, when she was handed this sentence, uh, I felt I had to do my part for her as well.”
How did ChatGPT help with Rose’s tumor?
Paul explained that he went to ChatGPT to draft a plan on developing a vaccine to treat his dog. He also contacted the University of New South Wales Ramaciotti Centre for Genomics for genomic sequencing.
“We took her tumor, we sequenced the DNA, we converted it from tissue to data and then we used that to sort of search for the problem in her DNA and then develop a cure based off that. ChatGPT assisted throughout the entire process.”
Paul says he used AI to process gigabytes of genetic data to create a blueprint for an mRNA vaccine.
ChatGPT also suggested Paul in the direction of the UNSW Ramaciotti Centre for Genomics where he got in touch with Associate Professor Smith, as per an Australian report.
After UNSW produced the DNA sequencing, Paul “ran it through a whole bunch of different (data) pipelines to find those mutations, and then I used other algorithms to find drugs to treat the cancer”.
After the treatment was administered over the Christmas break last year, Rosie’s tumor has reportedly shrunk in half.
“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. It took me three months, putting two hours aside every single night just typing up this 100-page document. But there was a second intervention of fate.’’ Paul said
OpenAI reacts to custom mRNA vaccine:
OpenAI President Greg Brockman, while reacting to the miraculous story, wrote on X, “How AI empowered Paul Conyngham to create a custom mRNA vaccine to cure his dog’s cancer when she had only months to live. The first personalized cancer vaccine designed for a dog.”
“Cool use case of AlphaFold, this is just the beginning of digital biology!” wrote Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis.
Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas also commented on the development, writing, “We will look back on AlphaFold as one of the greatest things to come from AI. Will keep giving for generations to come.”
