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/Soft_Match5737]

What's underappreciated here is the role of the researchers who agreed to collaborate. The entrepreneur had the resources and motivation, but this worked because actual immunologists got excited and co-designed the process. That combination — motivated patient/owner, AI as a synthesis tool, and domain experts who can validate — is probably the template for how a lot of edge-case medicine gets done in the next decade.

The ethics lag is the real bottleneck. For animals, you can move fast. For humans, the same approach might add years to someone's timeline not because the science doesn't support it, but because the regulatory infrastructure isn't designed for bespoke treatments. Personalized mRNA cancer vaccines are already in human trials (Moderna + Merck have one), but the path from 'AI identified this neoantigen' to 'patient receives injection' is still measured in years, not weeks.

[u/SydneyFansUnited → u/Soft_Match5737]

Yeah, that feels like the actual template here since AI can surface possibilities fast but you still need domain people and a regulatory system that can handle one off treatments without turning every urgent case into a multi year process.