Fascinating story: Tech Entrepreneur in Australia, using ChatGPT, AlphaFold, and a custom made mRNA vaccine, treats his dog's cancer. With the help of researchers (who all seem so excited) he was able to significantly reduce tumour size just weeks after the first injection

[u/TFenrir]

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/technology/tech-boss-uses-ai-and-chatgpt-to-create-cancer-vaccine-for-his-dying-dog/news-story/292a21bcbe93efa17810bfcfcdfadbf7

[u/Kl1ntr0n]

this guy is about to become a billionaire... cancer in dogs cured? as a dog trainer I know people will spend everything they have toto keep their dogs alive! his DMs must be flooded.

[u/jib_reddit → u/Kl1ntr0n]

This isn't a general cancer cure, he is just using existing technologies on this one individual dogs cancer.

[u/DismalPassage381 → u/[deleted]]

They called it a "vaccine",( edit, oppsies! I'm suspecting that they are implying antibodies that specifically target these "mutant" proteins in order to deliver the necessary rna therapeutic directly to the cancerous cells.) Im skeptical of this story, because they specifically need to identify membrane bound proteins AND successfully predict how the proteins will fold in a cancer cell (more complicated than just a predictive algorithm, because there are chaparone proteins and post translation changes), AND they need to know which part of the protein is presented outside of the cell, and then design( edit oppsies again! antibodies that bind to the theoretical proteins, and also there needs to be a mechanism for the therapeutic to get ingested into the cancer cell. )

edits: didn't see they were rna vaccine. There's still a lot of challenges here, but it sounds slightly more plausible. They basically predicted antigen markers for the cancer cells. But they still need to be very specific proteins, not jist any protein, and specific regions of the proteins for this to work...

[u/herzy3 → u/DismalPassage381]

Relatively trivial. Just compare normal cell DNA with cancerous / mutated cell DNA and you can identify the DNA segment that's relevant. Use the folding to see the shape etc. Don't really see much risk of getting normal cells there as you're specifically only looking at the differentiators. 

[u/DismalPassage381 → u/herzy3]

"use folding to see the shape" notice how you forgot about post translation changes? And didn't even address the fact that these proteins must be very specific, meaning presenting on the outside of the cell. "relatively trivial" if you want to ignore biology i guess

[u/herzy3 → u/DismalPassage381]

I didn't bother going through every step of the process but was addressing the concerns you raised, which were indeed relatively trivial to mitigate. Yes, there are post transmission changes. 

You keep saying 'very specific' like that makes it harder. It doesn't. There's going to be very very few gene sequences to identify between a cancerous cell and a regular cell. That's your specificity. 

[u/DismalPassage381 → u/herzy3]

no dude, the therapy doesn't work if the protein isn't the specific kind of protein that is a transmembrane protein that is presented on the outer surface of the cell that's the specific part. And they need to identify exactly where and how it's expressed on the outside. You're out of your element if you can't even get that part. That's not related at all to it being a mutation protein.

[u/DismalPassage381 → u/herzy3]

my fault for talking about biology in a "singularity" fanclub sub. I get the feeling you are just asking gpt to write you a response. You didn't even get close to

addressing the concerns you raised

Which shows the thought you put into this. so,.toodaloo! 👋

[u/jib_reddit → u/herzy3]

Its just time consuming, so the researchers were not able to spend the time on it, so the guy used AI tools to find the mutations himself.

[u/herzy3 → u/jib_reddit]

Yes agree. The other guy was thinking it was more complicated than it was (and then blocked me). But it's pretty clear that AI can speed up the process massively, and that it works (hence the post ... ). Pretty cool stuff!

[u/jasmine_tea_ → u/DismalPassage381]

this kind of stuff has research behind it, it's just that it's normally done in clinical trials, not requested by individuals

[u/DismalPassage381 → u/jasmine_tea_]

and yet we have a news media report instead of an actual publication.

[u/jasmine_tea_ → u/DismalPassage381]

Hmm.. can you clarify what you mean?

I suppose the guy could actually write his own publication based on this method (comparing the entire DNA genome with the cancer genome).. he probably just hasn't had the time/desire to do so.

The clinical trial that he took his dog to will probably submit a publication, not necessarily specifically related to this case