New Russian research project to immortalise billionaires

Dmitry Itskov, a Russian entrepreneur, claims he will personally oversee their immortality process, in exchange for an undisclosed fee.

Itskov claims to have hired 30 scientists to reach this goal and aims to transplant a human brain into a robot body within 10 years, the Daily Mail reported.

"You have the ability to finance the extension of your own life up to immortality. Our civilization has come very close to the creation of such technologies: it's not a science fiction fantasy," Itskov said in a letter delivered to billionaires listed in Forbes magazine.

"It is in your power to make sure that this goal will be achieved in your lifetime," he added.

He has contacted a list of billionaires with a proposal for funding his quest for immortality, which Itskov refers to as 'cybernetic immortality' and the 'artificial body'.

The initiative is opening its San Francisco office this summer, and will be launching a social media project connecting scientists around the world.

"The 2045 team is working towards creating an international research centre where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modelling and brain and consciousness modelling with the goal of transferring one's individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality," Itskov's official site said.

"Such research has the potential to free you, as well as the majority of all people on our planet, from disease, old age and even death," it said.

"For anyone interested, but skeptical, I am ready to prove the viability of the concept of cybernetic immortality by arranging an expert discussion with a team of the world's leading scientist working in this field," it added.

He hopes to then 'upload' minds without surgery, leaving human bodies as empty husks as their owners 'live on' inside robots.

The project is called Avatar after the James Cameron movie, set far in the future, where human soldiers use mind control to inhabit the bodies of human alien hybrids as they carry out a war against the inhabitants of a distant world.