Remember the woman who got a new trachea grown from her own stem cells? Well, she almost didn't — because the discount airline EasyJet decided that flying with stem cells presented a "security risk" and wouldn't let the scientists carrying them onto the plane.
"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," he said.
"I was so furious, trying to explain months of work.
"The clock was ticking. We'd taken the cells out of their culture media an hour before.
"We thought about driving to Barcelona, but that would have taken too long…"
The professor paid the 14,000 pounds it cost to charter a private jet out of his own pocket, though the cost was later reimbursed by Bristol University.
A spokesman for easyJet said: "We do not have any record of the passenger's request to carry medical materials on board the flight.
"However as a gesture of goodwill easyJet has refunded the passenger for the cost of his flight."
Easyjet 'threatened to derail stem cell transplant'
(Thanks, Heal Emru!)
