Martin Birchall's Biography

Martin Birchall, Professor, University College London

Professor Birchall is a Surgeon specialising in the management of disorders of the head and neck, voice and swallowing. Martin, with co-workers at UCL and overseas, developed decellularised biologic airway scaffolds combined with autologous cells and stem cells (either differentiated or undifferentiated), culminating in the world’s first stem cell based organ transplant in an adult (Lancet, 2008, 2014) and in a child (Lancet, 2012). In October, 2010, Martin performed the world’s first combined laryngeal and tracheal transplant with surgeons at the University of California Davis in a Californian woman who is now talking well. He was named Daily Telegraph-Morgan Stanley Briton of the Year for Science and Technology in 2009 and is the first ENT surgeon to be elected to the Academy of Medical Sciences (2011) and the first to be elected NIHR Senior Investigator (2014) and to serve on the UK's REF exercise. He runs a large multi-million pound transatlantic research programme funded by MRC, CIRM, TSB and NIHR, dedicated to the development of tissue-engineered organ replacements.