Michael Jackson will live on as a 'plastinated' creature preserved by German doctor Gunther von Hagens.



Von Hagens has caused controversy with everyone from the Pope to the chief rabbi in Israel with his practice of embalming corpses with preserving polyurethane.



Yesterday, he declared: 'An agreement is in place to plastinate the King of Pop.'



'An agreement is in place': German doctor Gunther von Hagens says he is to preserve the King of Pop with polyurethane



Michael Jackson with his Chimpanzee Bubbles in 1991: Bubbles currently resides at the Body Worlds exhibit at the O2 Centre in London



Von Hagens said that he spoke with representatives of the Jackson family 'many months ago' and it was agreed that his body will be plastinated and placed next to Bubbles, his late pet monkey who was plastinated a number of years ago and is exhibited at The Body Worlds & Mirror Of Time exhibition at the O2 Centre in London.

Von Hagens also confirmed it was one of Michael's final requests to be reunited with Bubbles.

'There is no better place than to do this at the venue where Jackson was due to perform his world record 50-date tour,' said a spokesman for Von Hagens.



He added: 'Von Hagens has hinted that a moonwalk pose would naturally be favoured. 'It is hoped the exhibit will be unveiled towards the end of July.'



It was widely believed that the singer, who died yesterday from a heart attack, was interested in having his body frozen in the hope he could later be brought back to life.

However, it is now too late for his wish to be granted as the freezing process - cryonics - must be initiated almost immediately after death but an autopsy on Jackson's body still needs to be carried out.



Cryonic freezing: Michael Jackson would need to have been put in a supercooled chamber very soon after his death for it to be effective

Cryonics is the cooling of legally dead people to liquid nitrogen temperature where physical decay essentially stops, with the idea that technology developed in the future will be able to revive them.

No-one has ever been revived using this process although it is a popular subject in science fiction films such as Forever Young featuring Mel Gibson.

Despite this, cryogenic freezing has become more popular over time.



Media mogul Simon Cowell caused headlines recently after he said that he wanted to undergo the process.

'Medical science is bound to work out a way of bringing us back to life in the next century or so, and I want to be available when they do,' he said.

How cryonics works

The medical process is a complicated one. Immediately after a cryonic patient's death certificate is signed by a doctor, a cryonics team restores the heartbeat and respiration using a machine to help keep cells in organs and tissues alive.

The patient's body is then cooled from body temperature (37C) to 10C as quickly as possible using ice.

Mel Gibson played a character from the 1930s who was frozen for 60 years in the 1992 film Forever Young

Medication is added to their bloodstream to help preserve the body.

Blood is then removed from the body and replaced with a saline-like solution that stops the shrinking or swelling of cells and tissues.



Anti-freeze agents are added to the blood vessels and the body is placed in a special cooling box where it is cooled to between -120C and -196C and stored away.



However, for this process to have any chance of working, the cryonic process must be started just minutes after 'legal death' is verified by doctors.

This is because a dead person's brain will start to experience a build-up of lactic acid at room temperature. Within 24 hours it will have virtually dissolved.



So with an autopsy on Michael Jackson expected 24 hours after his death, it's already too late for the Peter Pan of pop who never wanted to grow up.