We have reported previously that transduction of human primary bronchial epithelial cells from healthy donors (Munye et al., 2017) and individuals with cystic fibrosis (Tagalakis et al., 2018) using human BMI1 alone resolves these problems, establishing cell lines with normal karyotype, electrophysiological properties, mucociliary functionality, and sustained proliferative and differentiation properties for up to 25 passages (Munye et al., 2017). Here, BMI1 is linked to cystic fibrosis.