Dynamic Table, Setting V-align Of A New Cell

I am working on something that only needs to work in IE, and I've got
this code:

var aRows=oTable.rows;
var oCell1_1=aRows(0).insertCell();
oCell1_1.innerHTML= 'new cell'

Which inserts a row in my table and I can populate the cell with the
text using the innerHTML property. No problem.

My question is, how do I set the VALIGN of this new cell?

I have tried this..

oCell1_1.valign='top'

and that does not generate a JavaScript error but it doesn't
vertically align the text in the cell either.

Other attempts generate javascript errors.