Some people love life too much to ever let go. As reported in DNA, a newspaper from Mumbai, India, Australian biologist Philip Rhoades is one of them. In six months time, Rhoades hopes to build Australia’s first cryonics centre to deep-freeze his parents after they die, in the hope that future advances in nanotechnology will bring them back to life. The bodies will be drained of blood, filled with preservative chemicals, dipped in liquid nitrogen and entombed upside down in cylinders.

Decades later medicine may advance to the point where such bodies can be revived. "For example, it may be possible to send an army of nanorobots into the body to repaircells. Some processes related to biological self repair are already known. These would have to be developed further for cryonics to become a success," said Pushan Ayyub, a nanoscience expert at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai.

As a boy growing up in Sydney, Rhoades’ favourite pastime was reading John Wyndham’s science fiction."I liked Chrysalids the most and I assumed by the time I grew old, technology would evolve a way to keep us alive forever," says the 54-year-old biologist....

Immortality does not come cheap. For your body to be preserved in liquid nitrogen at the Arizona-based Alcor Life Extension Foundation, you have to shell out $150,000. Neuropreservation, which preserves just your brain, costs $80,000 .Human cryopreservation at the Cryonics Institute in Michigan is cheaper — it costs $35,000 . If you want to add insurance to your suspended animation state, then it shoots up to $95,000. Cryonics experts say the costs are justified because a revival is indeed a possibility. A statement from Alcor says, "Many biological specimens have been cryopreserved, stored at liquid nitrogen temperature where all decay ceases, and revived; these include whole insects, vinegar eels, many types of human tissue including brain tissue, human embryos which have later grown into healthy children, and a few small mammalian organs. Increasingly more cells, organs and tissues are being reversibly cryopreserved.

The repair capabilities of molecular biology and nanotechnology increasingly point to a future technology that can repair damage due to ageing, disease and freezing." Alcor first preserved a patient in 1972, and as of August 2006, there were 74. The Cryonics Institute in Michigan has an equal number of cryopreserved patients.

But that is just the tip of the iceberg.

The Cryonics Institute has 614 members who have signed up, of whom 266 want to have their bodies preserved when they die. Forty-four members want their pets preserved and 96 want their DNA to remain immortal. Alcor has 805 members lined up. In Australia, the Melbourne based Cryonics Association currently has 14 full members and 12 associate members, who are interested in being cryo-preserved, but have not yet signed up. At the moment, members who "deanimate" in Australia are initially processed by a funeral director locally and then flown to the US for final suspension. "We have had five such cases here in Australia and another two traveled to the US prior to death. Preparation in Australia and air shipment to the US add to the cost," says Theodore Tatton, spokesperson of the Cryonics Association of Australia.

He has won approval from the New South Wales Health Department to build the cryonics complex, which will be the third such facility in the world. The other two are in the United States .Rhoades’ mother Dorothy, 74, a science teacher, and father Gerald, 79, an industrial chemist, will be the first to be frozen at the centre in Cowra, 200 km from Sydney, after they die.

Later, Rhoades himself and one of his sisters, Jocelyn, will undergo the process. But Rhoades’ girlfriend, although accepting his views, did not want to be suspended after her death. "So far she has not shown interest, which is sad because I’d really miss her in the future," says Rhoades.

Cryonics attempts to suspend the normal decay processes in people who have been declared legally dead. Rhoades started researching this a decade back, and was surprised to find it was still in its infancy. He signed up with the Cryonics Institute in Michigan, USA, and began working with the Cryonics Association of Australia (CAA).

"There was a growing realization that we needed a cryonics centre in Australia. There are practical problems if an Australian wants to be suspended in the US. If you know you are dying, you can fly to the US. But if you die suddenly, you will first be treated in Australia before being sent to the US cryonics centres.

Then you are not too sure about the quality of the suspension," says Rhoades, who wants resources to be available in Australia by the time cryonics becomes big. He has bought 50 acres of land to build the cryonics centre, another 100 acres to set up a facility for research into suspended animation, and two acres to set up a Life Extension Village modeled on a ‘retirement village’ where residents will have community and professional support. Rhoades chose Cowra because he wanted the centre to be far away from Sydney ."With quantum computing and sophisticated nanotechnology,"

"I am optimistic that in the next 20 to 50 years, we would be able to live forever

unless a nuclear war or global calamity strikes. My whole basis is that if you have a choice to prolong life, why cut it short?" asks Rhoades, who is often told by his girlfriend that the future may not be worth living in, with the way the world is going.

However, the scientist feels mankind is at a cusp in history, where science and medicine are growing at an exponential rate. "We are not quite at a stage where medicine and science can keep us healthy forever, but there is a greater than zero chance of revival, if frozen," he explains.

We e-mailed Phil a few questions:

Will you be developing anything like Suspended Animation Inc.? I hope so.

We read somewhere that the facility will have a dome roof and be underground.

Will you accept neuros?

To begin with it is a family thing, so it will just be whole body

Will your prices be more in line with CI’s or ALCOR’s?

There is no price consideration. To begin with, it is just for my parents, but of course it has to get bigger than that, so I anticipate that it will eventually look more like CI than ALCOR. . I don't think it will be difficult to expand it to non-family people. Cowra Council is enthusiastic because it brings another "industry" to a small rural town.

Is there an LN2 supplier nearby?

What is the price of LN2 delivered in dewars?

Don’t know.

Do you have an architect’s drawing of the facility that we could use for a cover story?

You could use the Dome Shell drawings for the above ground stuff. (the first building will be residential.)

I have an arrangement with Alex Nelson J.P., MAIE Master Funeral Director (AFDA) Global Repatriation Services. He has done two perfusions prior to US repatriation so far. I also want/need to develop/acquire our surgical expertise.