An almost unbelievable story unfolded in Australia, offering a glimpse into the potential that people have to achieve great things with AI and use it for good. In 2019, Australian AI entrepreneur Paul Steven Conyngham adopted Rosie, an eight-year-old mixed-breed female dog, from an animal shelter. But five years later, their happy life together was cast into shadow. <\/p>\n\n
She was diagnosed with life-threatening mast cell cancer. Since conventional surgery and chemotherapy had shown little success, Conyngham decided to ask ChatGPT who he could turn to. The chatbot recommended that he contact the Ramaciotti Centre for Genomics at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) to ask if they would be interested in pursuing an experimental approach. The plan was to synthesize a vaccine tailored specifically to Rosie, using the exact same approach we know from mRNA vaccines and COVID. <\/p>\n\n
First, Conyngham had Rosie\u2019s DNA sequenced at the Ramaciotti Centre for Genomics at UNSW for 3,000 Australian dollars. Using this vast amount of genetic data, Conyngham employed AlphaFold\u2014an AI program developed by Google DeepMind that predicts the 3D structure of proteins\u2014to model a protein called c-KIT, which triggers mast cell cancer in dogs. Based on anomalies in this tumor protein, he identified a drug that might be effective against Rosie\u2019s cancer. When the press release was published last summer, he was still in the process of obtaining this drug. <\/p>\n\n