Twenty-three years ago a successful fund-raising campaign by Northern Echo readers helped make organ transplantation a success. Health Editor Barry Nelson tells the story of the Riase A Laser appeal.

North-Easterners are deservedly proud of the Freeman Hospital heart unit in Newcastle. Outside London, the Freeman is one of the most active and successful UK transplant centres.

Hundreds of heart, lung, kidney and liver transplants have been carried out there since the early 1980s, bringing new life to people who were at death's door. Since those pioneering days, scientists have become much better at reducing the chance of the recipient rejecting the donor organ by better tissue matching and giving patients the right amount of drugs to suppress the body's own immune system.

At the same time, there has been a revolution in management of patients with leukaemia, allowing life-saving bone marrow transplants to take place.

But few people now remember the vital role played by a revolutionary piece of equipment bought back in 1983 by thousands of generous readers of The Northern Echo. The bulky cell sorter allowed scientists in the North-East to be among the first in the world to develop practical tests to measure rejection.

Known as cross match flow cytometry, the tests are now routinely used in every transplant centre. The sorter was the first in a succession of cell sorters which are playing an increasingly important role at the cutting edge of medicine.

Back in those days, scientists and doctors were struggling to understand the challenge posed by organ rejection.

Unless there was a near perfect tissue match, the donated heart, lung, kidney or liver could be rejected by the patient.

North-East specialists in the field, including Newcastle-based surgeons George Proud, Professor Ivan Johnston and Professor David Talbot, coveted a new piece of equipment which used advanced technology to analyse blood.

The new blood analyser and cell sorter used laser technology to swiftly identify different types of blood cells. This meant scientists could calculate more accurately whether a donated organ would be accepted or rejected. It also allowed them to fine-tune the amount of immuno-suppressant drugs given to transplant patients to prevent rejection.

At a time when the cash-starved NHS was desperately short of resources the doctors, scientists and technicians involved in the transplant programme came up with the idea of an appeal.

They approached the then editor of The Northern Echo, Allan Prosser, and asked whether this newspaper could help to raise the £60,000 needed to purchase the new laser blood analyser.

Because of the need to make the facility available to hospitals across Tyneside, it was decided the new cell sorter would be based at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in the centre of Newcastle.

The response from the Echo - and more importantly, its readers - astonished the doctors. Within 11 days of the launch of what became the Raise A Laser Northern Echo Transplant Appeal in February 1983, an impressive £10,000 was raised. In late June that figure smashed through the £84,000 barrier as fundraisers kept the cash pouring in.

By October, the total reached an amazing £115,000, allowing delighted doctors to take delivery of their first computerised cell sorting machine and plough the rest of the cash into the department.

It had taken just eight months to buy a machine expected to bring untold benefits to diagnosis, treatment and research.

The appeal was supported by celebrities such as the then England football anager Bobby Robson, the ballerina Margot Fonteyn, actress Flora Robson, darts star Eric Bristow and legendary North-East comic Bobby 'Little Waster' Thompson.

At the time Prof Johnston told The Northern Echo: "It's a godsend. It offers us so many possibilities."

And kidney transplant surgeon Mr Proud said: "It exceeds all expectations. It is going to be so valuable."

Following delivery of the cell sorter to the RVI, Allan Prosser watched as a plaque was unveiled on the machine which read: "This cell sorter was bought in 1983 by the generous readers of The Northern Echo."

Today, the story can be told of how that first machine helped to kickstart a revolution in health care in the region. While the original machine was 'retired' in 1998 it has been replaced not once, but twice, as technological progress races ahead.

But the help of Echo readers may be needed again as the latest cell sorter reaches the end of its life.

Dr Brian Shenton, the senior scientist who now manages the RVI's modern department in which cell sorting and cell analysis takes place, is one of the few people from that era still working in the field. Dr Shenton, who grew up in Crook, County Durham, remembers the Echo campaign fondly.

"We thought it would take ages to get the money but it came in really quickly," he says. "It was a big success. It was the only available machine of its kind at the time which allowed you to analyse and sort single cells. The main thing it was used for was determining rejection which was one of the big problems at that time."

Dr Shenton says the RVI was one of the first centres in the world to develop effective tests for measuring rejection.

"The same tests are used now by every transplant centre in the world. It was much more sensitive than previous tests and it was developed here," he says.

"We also developed a test to work out the effectiveness of immuno-supressive therapy. It is a delicate balance. If you give a patient too much after a transplant it can wipe out bone marrow and your immune system."

The cell sorter proved invaluable in helping researchers to identify and isolate cancerous cells. This proved vital in monitoring whether patients receiving treatment for leukaemia were free of cancerous blood cells.

"We came up with one or two tests for breast cancer tumours which are now widely used," says Dr Shenton.

The cell sorter also proved its worth during the first wave of HIV cases, helping scientists to keep track of 'T cells' in the blood of HIV positive patients, a vital sign of whether their immune systems are keeping the virus at bay.

Recently, the successors to the original Echo cell sorter have been used to identify different types of breast cancers in women, helping doctors to decide which women are likely to respond to new drugs such as Tamoxifen and Herceptin.

Even more recently, the cell sorters have been involved in world-beating stem cell research, helping a Newcastle team to become the first to create a mini-liver from stem cells.

The original machine lasted until 1998 until it was replaced by a more up-to-date version purchased with a National Lottery Award. That machine had to be replaced in 2003.

"It is faster and more powerful," Dr Shenton says. "Despite being only three years old, the latest cell sorter is in danger of becoming obsolete. We could really do with the next generation of machine which allows you to see and photograph the individual blood cells."

Such a machine will allow experts to make more accurate diagnoses of diseases.

"One of the latest machines has been installed at Cambridge. Nobody else has one. It would be marvellous if we could get one up here in the North-East," says Dr Shenton.

An appeal is likely to be launched sometime in the New Year.

"If it hadn't been for people in places like Darlington, Richmond and Leyburn, we would not have got this machine," says Dr Shenton. "We can only hope we will get a similar response from Echo readers next time."