GitLab Co-founder Uses AI to Fight Cancer: From No Treatment Options to No Evidence of Disease

GitLab co-founder Sid was diagnosed with spinal osteosarcoma in late 2022. After recurrence in 2024, standard treatments were exhausted, leaving no options. He formed a personal medical team to take charge of his treatment decisions.

The team used an extreme diagnosis strategy, generating 25TB of tumor data. AI acted as an accelerator: GPT-4 analyzed sequencing data to mark key targets, an Agent system automatically did literature searches and data analysis (30 minutes per run, $20), and AI assisted in screening mRNA vaccine candidates.

After treatment, Sid now has no evidence of disease, with treatment options increasing from 0 to 30. The team is productizing this method, incubating related companies to lower the threshold for personalized treatment. AI doesn't replace doctors but helps non-experts become qualified conversational partners.