One company, Asterias Biotherapeutics, has revived one of the first research studies born from the origins of stem cell therapy in the late 1990s. And according to reports, it is showing a lot of promise. In the study, patients are injected in the spine with either 5 or 10 million stem cells. Each volunteer has ?essentially lost all movement below their injury site and experiences severe paralysis of the upper and lower limbs.? In data presented at the 55th Annual Scientific Meeting of the International Spinal Cord Society (ISCoS) in Vienna, Austria, Chief Medical Officer of Asterias, Dr. Edward Wirth, presented some promising results. Each patient treated showed improvement in the upper extremities. And notably, the patients who received the 10 million cell treatment seemed to have shown greater improvement than the lower dose patients. ?The results to date in the 10 million cell cohort, while still early, demonstrate meaningful improvement in motor function, particularly in the use of a patient?s hands, fingers and arms, which is critically important for a patient?s quality of life and ability to function independently,? said Steve Cartt, Chief Executive Officer of Asterias.