Could people ever really live until 1,000 or more?

Dr Aubrey de Grey believes people who have already been born could live for ten centuries because of ongoing research being done into "repairing the effects of ageing."

He hopes to ultimately create preventative treatments that mean humans would be able to consistently re-repair and live as long as 1,000 years or possible even forever.

British-born Mr de Grey, who graduated from Cambridge University in 1985 insists he is one of very few scientists looking at preventing, rather than slowing down ageing, and is perplexed why there is not huge focus on it.

He told the actuary.com: "To me, ageing was the world’s most important problem. It was so obvious that I never tested the assumption. I always presumed that everyone else thought the same."

But his theory for repairing ageing has not been widely accepted by peers.

He said: "People have this crazy concept that ageing is natural and inevitable, and I have to keep explaining that it is not.

“The human body is a machine with moving parts and like a car or an aeroplane, it accumulates damage throughout life as a consequence of normal operation."

Mr de Grey is the co-founder and chief science officer of Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS) Research Foundation in California, USA,.