Another fantastic story, as good as my post about the girl with rabies who recovered. A 37 year old woman in South Korea, who has been unable to walk or stand for 19 years is now–you guessed it–walking! A true miracle has been performed by doctors in Koreas who have allowed this woman hope of the life she led before an accident paralyzed her lower back and hips.

Now, the very words “stem cells” are likely to get some people worked up into a frenzy, even though there is nothing controversial about this story. Due to all of the media coverage, and hot passions on all sides, stem cells are becoming increasingly associated with embryos and aborted fetuses. However, in this case, doctors scientists isolated stem cells from umbilical cord blood and then injected them into the damaged part of the spinal cord.

Umbilical cord blood is about as benign as it gets. The baby has no use for it once born, and the blood simply gets trashed. So the stem cells were harvested in a completely non-conroversial fashion, and they seemingly worked a miracle on this woman. And this is very good news, as far as stem cell research. It indicates that umbilical cord stem cells are quite potent, and in fact, may be safer than embryonic ones.

“There have been many controversial debates on embryonic stem cells and also such stem cells are not practical due to their property of possibly causing teratoma (cancer of cells),’’ Dr. Kang Kyung-sun was quoted as saying in the Korea Times. He co-headed the team which performed the procedure.

Kang added that since cord blood stem cells are later than embryonic stem cells, they have little chance of causing the fatal teratoma.

I wish this woman many years of running, jumping, walking, dancing, and may she go as far as her legs will take her.