Kid with a birth defect
So Finley was born with two big toes on one foot and missing part of his tibia, knee problems and also had heart surgery.
If it's genetic, tissue regeneration won't work because the problem is in the DNA. It's the blueprint for how to build a foot and the blueprint is wrong. So if you wanted to grow this kid a new foot, you first determine if it's genetic or something else.
I don't think it's genetic.
If you place plastic beads in a tadpole at the place where the back legs form, they develop two sets of deformed back legs.
The way to bet is something got in there and that's one factor.
Genetic disorders typically involve a misfolded protein.
Those are the wrenches and hammers of the cell. You misfold them, they don't work right.
So genetic disorders trend towards GLOBAL effects not local.
My recollection is those beads in those tadpole experiments simulate a parasite that frogs get.
I wouldn't put the kid through hell. Because this began in utero, I would test mom for parasites and for various poisonous substances and if you get a result, check the kid for that short list.
I don't like the current state of skeletal intervention. I don't like transplants and I don't like metal pins and screws.
I'm missing a third of my teeth. I wish I could regrow them. I have a bunch of metal in my mouth and it's a root cause of some of my health issues.
I was Internet acquainted with the late Dr. Andrew Hall Cutler, Dr as in PhD in chemistry. Author of No More Amalgams. So he wanted to stop dental use of amalgam fillings. Amalgam contains mercury, a known poison.
I knew him through a chelation list. Chelation is how you treat metal poisoning.
Years ago, I tripped across mention of research on use of coral as bone graft alternative or dental replacement potential.
The research was NOT promising the last time I looked at it. My recollection: The coral kept growing and they couldn't figure out how to stop it. So like go in for a couple of shiny new teeth, have your face eaten by coral.
But it's potentially a means to help a growing child replace the missing bone IF the research is further along than when I read about it.
The problem with cadaver donation is the same as all organ donation:
1. Rejection.
2. We don't really know what rejection is and it seems likely to me it involves unidentified infections because the foreign microorganisms crawling around in your system outnumber your billions of cells.
Dental implants and most other dental work introduce metal poisoning that has significant detrimental impact on health. I was looking at articles on coral grafts for teeth replacement because my substantial dental work is a factor in my poor health.
So I would hate to see this kid filled with METAL contraptions and then have all kinds of additional mystery health problems while no one bothers to look up the stupidly obvious fact that it's symptoms of the metals we put in him.
The psychic Edgar Cayce is the source of the practice of using metal screws and pins in bones.
Edgar Cayce did two psychic readings a day and people frequently asked medical questions. He had a patient with a broken bone that wouldn't heal. He said put a screw in it to hold the two pieces together and it worked. So that's the origin of that practice.
And just like doctors are lousy about not cleaning up the mess in the gut antibiotics leave behind, no one has spent any time on thinking about how that causes metal poisoning and maybe we should remove those pins later.
I'm trying to mentally model can you do something like 3d print the bones you need from coral, use them as a scaffold for tissue regeneration and then somehow get real bone to grow to displace the coral and ultimately flush the remaining coral from the system to stop the overgrowth problem they had the last time I looked at this.
If you can 3d print him a skeleton for the foot and use his stem cells to grow him a foot in the lab from his tissues, you should have little to no risk of rejection.
And that's probably a lot more humane than treating him like a lab rat.
In the meantime, figure out what went wrong -- test mom for toxins and parasites -- and treat the kid for any medical issues you uncover BEFORE you do a graft.
Maybe grow/3d print a coral skeleton, KILL the coral and then use it as a scaffold to jumpstart the process of growing a limb in the lab.
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