Daily SumUp

For years, a Japanese man lay motionless, paralyzed from the neck down after a devastating spinal cord injury. Doctors doubted he would ever stand again. Today, he can not only stand independently but is learning to walk once more, thanks to an injection of laboratory-grown stem cells into his spinal cord.

Researchers at Keio University in Tokyo treated four fully paralyzed patients using neural stem cells derived from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS). Remarkably, half of the patients showed significant improvements. One can now stand, while the other can move his arms and legs.

“That’s a great positive outcome. It’s very exciting for the field,” says James St John, a translational neuroscientist at Griffith University in the Gold Coast, Australia.