A small privately held company based in Irvine, California called California Stem Cell, Inc. (www.californiastemcell.com), may be the first to gain FDA approval on a clinical trial to test embryonic stem cell treatment in humans and SMA would be one of the first two diseases that the company would focus on. Specific to their SMA stem cell research thus far, the company has already demonstrated in laboratory animals that the treatment leads to regrowth of nerve cells from the spinal cord into the muscles and one of the company's executives stated in the article below that “there's a great opportunity that stem-cell-based motor neuron treatment will work for them [SMA patients]”.
In my opinion, this is extremely encouraging news. We don't know how we may or may not fit into studies like this but I've reached out to the company to try and learn more.