Italian surgeon Professor Sergio Canavero has claimed that brains that have been cryogenically frozen could be “woken up” and transplanted into donor bodies within the next three years.

The Telegraph reports that Professor Sergio Canavero, the director of the Turin Advanced Neuromodulation Group, plans to carry out the first human head transplant within the next ten months and will then focus his attention on brain transplants. Canavero believes that if his research is successful, frozen brains could be thawed and placed within a donor body, bringing them back to consciousness.

Hundreds of people have been cryogenically frozen in the hopes of being woken at a later date, many of them suffering from illnesses which they hope will be cured by the time they are thawed. Many experts don’t believe that organs such as the brain can be thawed without damage, but Canavero believes the first frozen head could soon be brought back to life.

In an interview with the German magazine Ooom, Canavero said that he plans to bring back some of the patients frozen by the Alcor Life Extension Foundation which is based in Arizona.

“We will try to bring the first of the company’s patients back to life, not in 100 years. As soon as the first human head transplant has taken place, i.e. no later than 2018, we will be able to attempt to reawaken the first frozen head,” said Canavero. “We are currently planning the world’s first brain transplant, and I consider it realistic that we will be ready in three years at the latest. A brain transplant has many advantages. First, there is barely any immune reaction, which means the problem of rejection does not exist.”

Canavero continued, “The brain is, in a manner of speaking, a neutral organ. If you transplant a head with vessels, nerves, tendons and muscles, rejection can pose a massive problem. This is not the case with the brain.” Canavero did admit that his planned procedure will not be easy and may face a multitude of issues, “What may be problematic, is that no aspect of your original external body remains the same. Your head is no longer there; your brain is transplanted into an entirely different skull. It creates a new situation that will certainly not be easy.”
Other scientists are quite skeptical of Canavero’s claims. Clive Coen, Professor of Neuroscience at King’s College London, said, “The advocates of cryogenics are unable to cite any study in which a whole mammalian brain, let alone a whole mammalian body, has been resuscitated after storage in liquid nitrogen. Even if reviving that body were possible — it isn’t — all the complicated organs would have been wrecked from the start, and warming them up again would wreck them further.”
Canavero, however, believes that if his project is successful, it could have huge implications for humanity, “In a few months we will sever a body from a head in an unprecedented medical procedure. In this phase, there is no life activity, not in the brain, not anywhere else in the body. If we bring this patient back to life we will receive the first real account of what actually happens after death. The head transplant gives us the first insight into whether there is an afterlife, a heaven, a hereafter.”

“If we are able to prove that our brain does not create consciousness, religions will be swept away forever.” said Canavero, “They will no longer be necessary, as humans no longer need to be afraid of death.  We no longer need a Catholic Church, no Judaism, and no Islam because religions in general will be obsolete. It will be a turning point in human history.”

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan_ or email him at lnolan@breitbart.com