Scientists have spent decades searching for a means of enabling the paralysed to walk again. Motorised exoskeletons, which are strapped on the body, bypassing the injury, are now available commercially.
Electrical stimulation techniques use implants to enable patients to flex their lower limbs. But neither method involves repairing the damaged spinal cord.
The approach in Poland aims to reconnect the brain with the lower limbs along the neural superhighway that is the spinal cord, enabling both motor control commands to travel down the body and sensation to travel up.
Darek Fidyka's spinal cord had been almost completely severed as a result of a knife attack, apart from a thin thread of external connective tissue and prior to the transplant, he had no feeling or control below his injury.
Now he has had to re-learn how to control his muscles and interpret sensations. He said: "I realise how important the brain is while cycling, and that thinking is more tiring than the exercise itself."
But the results from one patient, however impressive, would never be sufficient evidence on which to base a new approach to spinal cord injury.
The forthcoming trial in Poland will be crucial if the wider scientific community is to be convinced that a patient's own cells can be used to regenerate their spinal cord.
It is also worth stressing that the patients selected will have to show enormous determination if they are to see the full benefits of the treatment.
In the first of two operations, surgeons will remove one of the patient's olfactory bulbs, which sit above the nasal cavity at the base of the brain, and process the sense of smell.
The bulb contains specialist cells known as olfactory ensheathing cells (OECs) which act as a pathway that enables nerve fibres in the olfactory system to continually renew.
In a second operation the patient's OECs will be injected above and below the injury and strips of tissue laid across the gap in the cord.
The team believe the OECs will enable nerve fibres to regenerate across the cord and so repair the damage.
An independent team of assessors led by neurophysiologists from Imperial College London will also be closely involved in monitoring the research.
Peter Ellaway, emeritus professor of physiology, at Imperial said: "I'm excited because this is a novel treatment with a lot of promise."
But he cautioned that even if it works it would take some years to refine and so would not be immediately available for patients.
The treatment in Poland will cost £250,000 per patient and is being funded by a small British charity, the Nicholls Spinal Injury Foundation (NSIF)., external
It was founded by chef David Nicholls after his 18-year-old son Daniel was paralysed from the neck down in a swimming accident.
Mr Nicholls said: "I know how important progress is to people living with spinal cord injury and am optimistic that success with the next two patients will result in an announcement that paralysis is curable."