Who are we? What is this about?
We are two long-time friends, a computer programmer who knows how to make internets, and patient with a mysterious leg ailment. We call ourselves Castor and Doug.
After trying mightily to cure his chronic leg pain, Castor and his doctors are in need of a fresh pair of eyes.
As a concerned friend with programming experience, Doug knows that all bugs are shallow if you get enough eyes on it.
And that's the goal: cure this bug!
The Triple-Threat
We believe that Castor's problem is solvable. We may not know how right now, but it is solvable.
What are the resources Castor and Doug have?
- Knowledge We are not doctors, but we have a pre-med-level understanding of biology. Additionally, we are both trained scientists and engineers.
We have:
- A real-live doctor friend, the third member of the three-musketeers, who we'll call Brandon.
- Brandon, Castor, and Doug's International Baccalaureate (IB) education in Biology.
- The textbook used was Campbell and Reese, 6th edition (now on its 10th edition).
- Doug's bachelor's degree in Physics.
- Castor's bachelor's degree in Mining Engineering.
- Doug's undergraduate classes in molecular biology.
- Doug's undergraduate thesis on conjugating anitbodies to gold nanoparticles to identify scar-phenotype cells using a confocal microscope for cornea tissue engineering applications.
- Doug's summer internship in a functional MRI laborator studying visual cortex functioning in rats.
- Doug's conversations with friends who are top researchers at the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts and Scripps Health Institute in San Diego, California.
- Philipp Dettmer's (of Kurzgesagt) book Immune
- Doug's life-long interest in molecular, cellular, evoloutionary, and ecological biology.
- Motivation Doug has been in excruciating pain for years. No one wants to solve his problem more than him. And Castor has seen watched his friend suffer in excruciating pain for years. While there are alot of ties for second place: wife, sisters, father and mother, among life-long friends no one is angrier that this problem isn't solved.
But what's missing?
- Objective Distance This is where you come in. We have been too close to this issue for too many years (and also suffering from it). We need people who are not involved to take a look at the same data, but with a dispassionate remove. We need people who are only tangentially interested to follow our chains of analysis, calling out every step of the way that doesn't make sense. We need you.
What we're hoping for
In a nutshell, your thoughts, no matter what they are.
This blog will be a success if we can get doctors, cranks, family, strangers, engineers or convicts to send us their opinions and theories on what could be the cause of Castors's leg pain.
We'll give you Castor's history, bit by bit, with all the data we can get our hands on. We will try to keep it engaging, and in return, all we ask is that you send us any thought that pops into your mind and might help.
The best way to contact us is email:
thelegfiles@gmail.com
But our contact section is here: Contact.