The super-rich are having their brains frozen for £80,000 ($100,000) in the hope of being re-born in as little as 200 years time.

Cryogenics, which involves deep freezing the body to -196°C (-321°F), is increasingly being seen as a way to beat death.

One businessman believes he will wake up in the future and 'experience a whole new life' after having his head placed on the body of another human being.

The British-born man, who wanted to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the topic, says he 'can't think of anything more exciting'.

However, many experts say there is no hope of success as organs such as the heart and kidneys have never been successfully frozen and thawed – let alone the brain.

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The super-rich are having their brains frozen for £80,000 ($100,000) in the hope of being re-born in as little as 200 years time. Cryogenics, which involves deep freezing the body to -196°C (-321°F) (stock image), is increasingly being looked at as a way to beat death

Cryonics, also known as cryogenics and cryopreservation, is the art of freezing a dead body or body parts in order to preserve them for future use.

'I know that a lot of people will think I'm daft, but why not give it a try? Nothing ventured, nothing gained,' a business mogul in his late 60s who wanted only to be identified as 'David' told Daily Star.

'I thought I'd invest a bit of money in this and I may wake up in 200 or 2,000 years' time and be able to experience a whole new life.

'I can't think of anything more exciting,' he said.

Advocates see cryopreservation as a miracle procedure to cheat death, with the hope frozen bodies will be able to be revived in the future, when medical science has progressed far enough to cure whatever killed them.

Brain preservation is the ultimate goal in the field of cryopreservation.

The service is already being offered by two main US organisations: Alcor, in Arizona, and the Cryonics Institute, in Michigan.

Alcor has 1,000 paying members, with some patients paying as much as £200,000 ($255,000) for full body preservation.

The company currently has 149 dead patients stored in the facility, including the youngest person ever to be cryopreserved – Matheryn Naovaratpong from Thailand, who was only two when he died.

'Only my close family know I am doing this and most are very supportive. Their attitude is: "It's your money so spend it how you like",' said David.

The process can only take place once the body has been declared legally dead.

Ideally, the freezing process will begin within two minutes of the heart stopping.

At worst, cryopreservation should not start after more than 15 minutes have passed.

The corpse needs to be packed in ice and injected with chemicals to reduce blood clotting. At the cryonics facility, it is cooled to just above 0°C and the blood is replaced with a solution to preserve organs.

Cyrogenics is seen by its proponents as the holy grail of cheating death and new technologies could soon make it possible, according to one expert in the field. Pictured are tanks which maintain the corpses

WHAT IS CRYONICS? WHAT IS CRYONICS? The deep freezing of a body to -196°C (-321°F). Anti-freeze compounds are injected into the corpse to stop cells being damaged. The hope is that medical science will advance enough to bring the patient back to life. Two main US organisations carry out cryonics in the US: Alcor, in Arizona, and the Cryonics Institute, in Michigan. Russian firm KrioRus is one of two facilities outside the US to offer the service, alongside Alcor's European laboratory in Portugal. HOW IS IT MEANT TO WORK? The process can only take place once the body has been declared legally dead. Ideally, it begins within two minutes of the heart stopping and no more than 15. The body must be packed in ice and injected with chemicals to reduce blood clotting. At the cryonics facility, it is cooled to just above 0°C and the blood is replaced with a solution to preserve organs. Cryonpreservation is the deep freezing of a body to - 196°C (-321°F). Anti-freeze compounds are injected into the corpse to stop cells being damaged The body is injected with another solution to stop ice crystals forming in organs and tissues, then cooled to -130°C. The final step is to place the body into a container which is lowered into a tank of liquid nitrogen at -196°C. WHAT'S THE CHANCE OF SUCCESS? Many experts say there is none. Organs such as the heart and kidneys have never been successfully frozen and thawed. It is even less likely a whole body, and the brain, could be without irreversible damage. HOW MUCH DOES IT COST? Charges at the Cryonics Institute start at around £28,000 ($35,000) to 'members' for whole-body cryopreservation. Rival group Alcor charges £161,000 ($200,000) while KrioRus' procedure will set you back £29,200 ($37,600). HOW LONG BEFORE PEOPLE CAN BE BROUGHT BACK TO LIFE? Cryonics organisations claim it could be decades or even centuries. However, medical experts say once cells are damaged during freezing and turned to 'mush' they cannot be converted back to living tissue, any more than you can turn a scrambled egg back into a raw egg. Advertisement

Earlier this year, Dennis Kowalski, 49, President of the Michigan-based Cryonics Institute, claimed humans could one day be revived from a cryogenic state, and stem cell therapy could help them bring them back to an even younger age.

He also suggested that the first human frozen by cryonics could be revived within the next 50 to 100 years.

The Michigan-based Cryonics Institute, is a non-profit organisation that offers human freezing services for $28,000 per person (£20,200).

Mr Kowalski, who also works as a firefighter, paramedic and paramedics teacher in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, says that a lot of things that weren't possible will soon be possible with regards to cryonics.

He told the MailOnline that if reviving cryogenically frozen people is not possible, at least we are learning.

Around 2,000 people have put their names down to be cryogenically frozen by Mr Kowalski's institute and more than 100 pets and 160 people have already been frozen at the laboratory.

'After cardiac arrest, you have around 5 minutes to half an hour to revive someone,' said Mr Kowalski.

Humans could live forever by keeping their minds conscious while their bodies are frozen, Dennis Kowalski (pictured), president of the Michigan-based Cryonics Institute, has claimed. He believes scientists could reanimate one of these corpses within the next ten years

'But it depends on temperature and how long they were alive for.

'We're finding that when you cool people down you have more time,' he said.

Mr Kowalski said his work is an extension of stem cell research, and that stem cells could be injected into cryogenically frozen patients to help repair damaged cells.

'They will be not be injected with traditional stem cells while they are frozen,' said Mr Kowalski.

'This would have to happen when they have begun the warming process and the stem cells would most likely be much different then the stem cells we have today.

'We're trying to save your DNA and mind.

'If all we cared about was your DNA, we could save that and clone you and you would look no different, but it would be a totally different person,' he said.

Mr Kowalski says that in the future, if there is super advanced technology that can 'reverse engineer nature,' then there is no reason elderly people couldn't be revived and brought back, possibly even as their healthy, 20 year-old selves.