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Search forPioneering op put at risk as stem cells barred from Bristol flight
Wednesday, November 19, 2008, 22:57
A Bristol University professor had to pay the £14,000 cost of hiring a private jet to make sure the cells, to be used in the world's first windpipe transplant operation, reached a hospital in Barcelona in time after budget airline easyJet refused to let a courier take them on its scheduled service.
Prof Martin Birchall said easyJet's refusal followed months of attempts to ensure the vital package was cleared for travel. It left them with just 14 hours to get the cells to Spain – so they hired a jet, piloted by a medical student's friend, to take it there.
The airline insists it has no record of any request for security clearance to transport the cells, which are carried in a liquid to protect them.
The Evening Post reported yesterday how Bristol University scientists used stem cells from Colombian Claudia Castillo's bone marrow to create cartilege cells which were then combined with part of an organ donor's windpipe to create a bronchus – the branch of the trachea which leads to the lungs – in the laboratory.
Ms Castillo's bronchus, leading to her left lung, had collapsed leaving her facing the potentially-fatal removal of a lung.
German medical student Philip Jungerbluth was barred from taking the cells on board the easyJet flight he was booked onto as he checked in at Bristol Airport. Staff told him it would be a security risk.
Bristol University professor, Martin Birchall, who had grown the cells in his laboratory, said he had been in contact with easyJet for a couple of months before the flight, and believed any problems had been dealt with. When the stem cells had been transported from Spain there was such a small amount that they were carried in 100ml containers, which can be taken on flights.
Prof Birchall said he was told the package – containing about 60 million cells – could be taken on the plane as long as it was wrapped and labelled.
"I phoned and couldn't get through to anybody, I e-mailed and didn't get replies and in desperation I went to the desk at Bristol Airport and they put me through to people at their head office who told me what I needed to do to send this," he said.
"They gave me strict instructions as to how I should present something like a transplant organ, clearly labelled. They knew there was liquid and that it was packaged in a way that it would not get out."
Prof Birchall said that he had even phoned easyJet again an hour before setting off to the airport to check everything was in place.
He said: "On arrival they said it couldn't go on because it would be a security risk but I had been talking to people on a regular basis.
"I almost got arrested by armed police; I was so furious, trying to explain months of work."
Prof Birchall said: "I was sat down feeling glum when Philip said he had a friend from medical school who used to fly and within a couple of phone calls he got him to leave Germany and be with us and he said he would charge us cost only."
Prof Birchall was reimbursed by the university and easyJet offered to refund the cost of the original flight.
An easyJet spokesman said: "We do not have any record of the passenger's request to carry medical materials onboard the flight.
"However as a gesture of goodwill easyJet has refunded the passenger for the cost of his flight."
The spokesman said that the airline worked with transplant organisations and organs can usually be transported by their planes throughout the UK with prior arrangement.
He said because the stem cells were in liquid they would have been subject to stringent aviation rules with security clearance required. A letter would usually be sent to the individual to show at check-in and security staff would have been alerted.
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