Hello everyone,

I am Ather’s mother and I created this page to help fund our stem cell therapy journey and rehabilitation for my son who has a rare genetic condition in the DTYMK gene to help strengthen his body & improve his quality of life. His condition is classified under Mitochondria DNA Depletion Syndrom.

Our story:

My son is currently a year old and was diagnosed with this terminal condition when he was 5 months old. He is being treated at the Montreal childrens hospital. Unfortunately there have only been 4 cases documented in the whole world and based on the condition’s progression we were told that our baby boy will only live to be 5 years old.

This condition causes the death of enzymes in all of the body’s cells and mainly affects the brain. Our son was born healthy and stayed that way until he was 3 months, this is when the death of his brain cells became significant. At 2 years old he cannot sit or speak, he has very low muscle tone, developmental delay, and motor delay.

As a family we are trying to find anything that could help our baby boy however due to how rare the condition it is very difficult to find funding for medical research and therefore there is no cure.

We found a clinical trial located in the Montreal Children’s Hospital that was designed for a mitochondrial condition called polg and they were willing to accept Ather’s rare condition due to the similarities of the conditions. Unfortunately this was a long process to get accepted into government funding and we had to pay out of pocket until he was officially accepted. We can see some improvements and we pray that this drug stops the progression of his condition.

We are also looking into stem cell therapy & continuous rehabilitation for our son. Below is what it will cost us for the upcoming year.

Cost breakdown for 2025-2026

2025

Clinical Trial medication - until we were accepted in the government program - 6000$ ✅

1st intensive (Jordan) 6 weeks - 7000$ ✅

2nd intensive (Ottawa) 1 week - 1500$ ✅

2026

Stem Cell Therapy (Panama) - 26,000$✅

1st intensive (Post stem cell therapy) 2 weeks (TBD) - 3,000$✅

2nd intensive (TBD) 4 weeks - 15,000$

3rd intensive (TBD) 2 weeks - 4000$

4th intensive (TBD) 2 weeks - 4000$

Your support is greatly appreciated!