Shari Rose, The Republic I azcentral.com

Freezing the human body for future resurrection hundreds of years from now may seem like an impossibility, but for some believers in Scottsdale, death is a new beginning.

The process is called cryonics, and it is operated by Alcor, a Scottsdale company that cools a person's body to below-freezing temperatures after death in the hopes that he or she will be revived in the future. Alcor stores 128 patients in the facility and boasts 997 living members from around the country.

When a member dies, he or she is immediately transported to the company's facility for rapid cooling at -120 degrees Celsius to prevent brain-cell damage caused by lack of oxygen. Theoretically, this process will retain the "original state" of the person's brain.

However, Alcor says no human being has ever been revived from these temperatures before.

John De Goes, a 10-year member of Alcor, said technological advances in the last 15 years suggest human beings will eventually be able to overcome the natural aging process.

"There will be no end in sight in terms of progress we are going to make," De Goes said. "We are machines, and it's clear that at some point our own technology can construct or alter the shape of things. We'll be able to engineer defects out of our DNA."

He became fascinated with cryonics as a child and continued to research it throughout college. De Goes' wife, Sophia, is also a member of Alcor.

They are confident cryonics is a way for them to live in a future unburdened by disease and illness.

"The prospect of a world free from cancer or Alzheimer's - that's amazing to me," De Goes said. "It's a hopeful view of the future because, as a species, we are going to be masters of our own genetic destiny."

There are 71 Alcor members who live in Arizona. Some are natives of the state and others retired in Scottsdale and Phoenix to remain close to the facility.

Though De Goes lives in Boulder, Colo., he said he plans to retire in Scottsdale so his body is not badly damaged in the transit process.

A major concern for cryonics patients is the status of the body after death. The sooner a body can begin the cooling process at the facility, the greater likelihood death-related injuries can be reversed.

De Goes said his family and friends for the most part responded well to his membership. He said some struggle with the idea that cryonics can disrupt the natural process of life and death.

"Because they have a view of the human body as something more than a machine, like a soul, there's this perception that there are things we build, but the human body is magical," he said.

Most members pay for the procedure through a life insurance policy. Alcor offers two options for preservation. One possibility is whole-body cryopreservation, which costs $200,000. The alternative is an $80,000 option called neuropreservation, where the brain is left untouched inside the head. The head is then removed from the body.

Though a brain cannot survive on its own when it is revived, Alcor said it believes future technology will allow the regrowth of that person's body.

"It seems much more likely that the patient's own cells will be prodded into regrowing the body that belongs around the brain in a reprise of the natural process that made the body in the first place," its website says.

Alcor said it will revive patients as soon as it is technologically feasible to do so. It will also reintroduce them into society.

Another member, Richard Leis, is an operations specialist for a specialized camera that takes images of Mars' surface at the University of Arizona. He said he believes it is unlikely he can live after death, but it's worth the chance.

"I've thought a lot about what happens when we die and there really two ways of disposing a body: cremation and burying," he said. "Alcor became a third option."

Before joining Alcor, Leis founded a transhumanist club in Tucson that focused on using technology to create immortal humans. He said this fascination with avoiding "involuntary death" led to an interest in cryonics.

Leis hopes future science will discover how to treat the process of aging and encourage more people to consider cryonics as an end-of-life decision.

"As that research piles up and more people hear about the ideas, then people will think, 'I want to live forever.'" He said. "'How long do I have to wait? Is cryonics a possibility while I wait for these technologies?'"