This is a cool story in more ways than one. The article mentions that no dogs were paralyzed for this trial and I believe it being a dachshund owner myself. Not my current dog but the one before him has 2 back surgeries with disc repairs and it wasn’t easy or cheap to say the least and if something like this treatment would have been around, I would have been all over it. These are the greatest little dogs and here’s my current one who guards my auxiliary hard drives as a dog’s work is never done":)
More importantly it gives us faith that one day this could be an answer for humans using stem cells to help those who are not able to walk due to injuries in the spinal cord area. This little guy had not been able to walk since 2008, a long time for a doggie. This was a double blind trial to where nobody, the dog owners nor the researchers 
knew which dogs received the real treatment and which ones were placebos. This reminds me of the Geron clinical trial which is still ongoing for a few individuals but no new participants have been enrolled since Geron decided to focus on Cancer research a short while back. This is yet another reminder of the fact that we need to fund research and how tough it is for biotech companies. The chase for social algorithms has somewhat overshadowed the need for life saving technologies sadly to say. Both Stanford and UCI were active participants in this trial too.
Geron To Focus on Cancer Programs Discontinues Internal Development of Spinal Stem Cell Programs-66 Jobs Go Away–Biotech Gets Shot in the Foot With Funding While the Ridiculously Valued Chase for Social Algorithms Intensifies
So what’s the answer for funding? License and tax the billions of dollars made by the data sellers and help out both the NIH and FDA as that’s where all of this takes place. I’m talking about the companies, banks, etc. that get their data for nothing and their profits for free. Everyone complains and recognizes this fact but does nothing to suggest how to fund it, so I’m being a little different here as this tax would also help address privacy issues and give consumers a disclosure on who sells what kind of data to who. Without that law enforcement could shut them down along with non payment of license and tax fees.
One More Good Reason to Tax the Data Sellers– Create Additional Funding for the NIH and FDA From Sources That Otherwise Are Too Greedy to Share & Contribute
A paralyzed dachshund has learned to walk again after cells taken from his nose were used to bridge the breaks in his spinal cord.
Jasper, who has been unable to walk since 2008, has now been described as his owner as “whizzing around the house”.
The study offers new hope for paralyzed human beings and is the first demonstration of effective spinal cord repair in “real life” injury cases.
Professor Robin Franklin, one of the study leaders from Cambridge University, said: "Our findings are extremely exciting because they show for the first time that transplanting these types of cell into a severely damaged spinal cord can bring about significant improvement."
Many of the dogs were dachshunds, which are especially prone to this type of injury. Unlike humans, dogs can suffer serious damage to their spinal cord just by having a slipped disc.
"It's a great example of collaboration between veterinary and regenerative medicine researchers that has had an excellent outcome for the pet participants and potentially for human patients."
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/11/19/paralysed-dachshund-jasper-nose-cell-transplant-hope-humans_n_2157343.html?utm_hp_ref=tw
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