I'm starting Horizons of the Vast fairly soon, with a party working for Zennelidie Labs. Reading ahead, Serpents in the Cradle mentions that they're seeking a cure for draconic hepadystrophy, which would be deterioration of the liver unless they use different Latin in the Pact Worlds. One of my players has a medical background and a love of prodding at the backdrop of the setting, so I thought I'd poll the gallery for ideas about what makes it so hard to cure. I considered the idea that things like a regeneration table are outside of the price range of an overwhelming majority of the population, but if your spouse is a true dragon who founded a medical research corporation after your death money probably wasn't an issue.
The condition is genetic . Re growing the liver results in the same bad liver coming back. Changing the genetic material for the liver results in a violent exothermic reaction between the growing liver cells and the patients immune system. (hence the name)
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The condition is genetic . Re growing the liver results in the same bad liver coming back. Changing the genetic material for the liver results in a violent exothermic reaction between the growing liver cells and the patients immune system. (hence the name)
Seems plausible. To hare off on a tangent, it makes me wonder if supernaturally tough creatures like dragons would be prone to difficulty with things like organ transplants and anything else requiring immunosuppression? How do you suppress the immune system of a creature with a dozen dragon hit dice (not a thing in Starfinder, but you get the idea) enough to get it to accept a foreign organ without catastrophic side-effects? Even if you could, imagine how murderously virulent draconic pathogens would be, so an immunocompromised dragon would probably be risking death even from exposure to a half-draconic rhinovirus.
Then again, mixing real-world systems and RPG logic is a recipe for strange rabbit-holes.