Paul Conyngham is not a doctor. He has no background in biology or oncology. What he does have is 17 years of machine learning experience and a rescue dog named Rosie he was not willing to give up on.
When conventional treatment failed to stop the aggressive mast cell cancer spreading through Rosie’s hind leg in 2024, Conyngham did what any data engineer would do. He opened ChatGPT and started asking questions.
What followed became a world first. Working with researchers at two Australian universities, Conyngham designed a personalized mRNA cancer vaccine for Rosie using AI tools available to anyone. The tumor on her leg shrank by 75%. Scientists who helped make it happen say they were stunned.
Pet dog Rosie’s cancer diagnosis left few options
Rosie is an eight-year-old Staffordshire Bull Terrier-Shar Pei cross Conyngham adopted from a Sydney shelter in 2019. In 2024, large tumors began appearing on one of her back legs.
The diagnosis was mast cell cancer, the most common skin cancer in dogs. Vets gave her between one and six months to live. Conyngham spent tens of thousands of dollars on chemotherapy and multiple surgeries. The tumors slowed but refused to retreat.
“No worries, I’m a data analyst and I’ll figure this out with the help of ChatGPT,” Conyngham told the U.K.’s International Business Times. And he meant it.
How data engineer Conyngham used AI to map the cancer
Conyngham used ChatGPT as a research assistant, not a replacement for scientists. The chatbot pointed him toward genomic sequencing and suggested he contact the Ramaciotti Centre for Genomics at the University of New South Wales.
He paid $3,000 AUD to have Rosie’s DNA sequenced, comparing her healthy cells to her tumor cells to pinpoint exactly where mutations had taken hold. He then ran that data through Google DeepMind’s AlphaFold, the protein structure prediction tool that won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2024, to model the three-dimensional shapes of the proteins produced by those mutations.
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From those models, he identified the neoantigens most likely to trigger a meaningful immune response. Months of analysis were condensed into half a page of formulas.
Associate Professor Martin Smith, director of the Ramaciotti Centre, watched the process with growing disbelief. “Paul was relentless,” Smith said, according to Türkiye Today.
“He called and told me he had analyzed the data, found mutations of interest, used AlphaFold to find the mutated proteins, identified potential targets. I’m like, ‘Woah, that’s crazy!'”
The mRNA cancer vaccine is a world first
Professor Páll Thordarson, director of the UNSW RNA Institute, took Conyngham’s half-page formula and built the mRNA vaccine. It was the first personalized cancer vaccine ever made for a dog.
Conyngham drove 10 hours to Gatton, Queensland, in December 2025 for Rosie’s first injection. He returned for a booster in January 2026. One week after the first shot, the tumor began visibly shrinking.
By January, Rosie had regained enough energy to jump a fence at the dog park chasing a rabbit. In December, she had barely been able to move.
What the AI tools each contributed to the vaccine
- ChatGPT: Research planning, treatment strategy, and iterating on vaccine design throughout the process.
- AlphaFold: Modeled the 3D structures of proteins encoded by Rosie’s tumor mutations to identify viable targets.
- Custom machine learning: Conyngham’s own algorithms for neoantigen selection, identifying which mutated proteins would most likely trigger an immune response.
- UNSW RNA Institute: Professor Thordarson’s team synthesized the actual mRNA vaccine from Conyngham’s analysis.
- University of Queensland: Professor Rachel Allavena administered the vaccine under existing ethics approval for experimental canine treatments.
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“It was like holy crap, it worked,” Smith said. “It raises the question, if we can do this for a dog, why aren’t we rolling this out to all humans with cancer?”
Thordarson was equally candid about what the case demonstrates. “What Rosie is teaching us is that personalized medicine can be very effective and done in a time-sensitive manner with mRNA technology,” he said, as Awesome Agents reported.
But researchers are careful to note that this is one dog, one tumor, with no controlled trial. Mast cell tumors can sometimes shrink spontaneously. Human trials would require years of regulatory work and hundreds of millions of dollars in testing. Conyngham himself is clear-eyed about the limits.
“I’m under no illusion that this is a cure,” he said. “But I do believe this treatment has bought Rosie significantly more time and quality of life.”
The implications of mRNA vaccines for human cancer treatment are real
Companies including Moderna are already working on personalized mRNA cancer vaccines for humans. What Rosie’s case demonstrates is that the pipeline — sequence the tumor, model the mutations, design a targeted mRNA vaccine — can be compressed from years into months using AI tools that are freely available today.
Thordarson believes the approach could be democratized in Australia without relying on foreign pharmaceutical companies. He also sees potential applications beyond cancer, including neurological diseases.
Conyngham is already designing a second vaccine for a tumor that did not respond to the first treatment. He is also working with everyone involved to explore how other dog owners might access the same process.
One rescue dog and a freely available chatbot may have just quietly changed what is possible in cancer medicine.
