A British schoolwoman has been cryogenically frozen after she died from cancer, within the hopes that she could be "woken up" and cured in the future.

The 14-year-old asked a High Court choose to rule that her body might be preserved after her mother and father disagreed about her wishes.

She wrote to the court: "I believe being cryo-preserved gives me an opportunity to be cured and woken up, even in hundreds of years’ time. I don’t wish to be buried belowground.

"I wish to live and live longer and I believe that in the future they may discover a remedy for my cancer and wake me up."

Mr Justice Peter Jackson dominated that the lady’s mother, who supported her wish to be frozen, should have the only proper to determine what occurred to her daughter’s body.

The case was the first of its type and has been hailed as a landmark ruling for cryogenics. But how does the process work?

What's cryogenics?

Cryogenic freezing is the process of preserving a dead body with liquid nitrogen.

Advocates imagine that scientists will at some point work out the right way to warm the bodies up and bring them back to life, by which period doctors is perhaps able to cure cancer and other ailments which are untreatable today.

At present, cryogenic freezing can solely happen once someone has been declared legally dead.

How does cryogenic freezing work?

Freezing wants to start as soon as doable after the affected person dies to prevent harm to the brain.

First, the body is cooled in an ice tub to gradually reduce its temperature. In some cases CPR may also be administered to stop brain preservation after death cells from dying.

Doctors will then drain the body of all blood and change it with an anti-freeze fluid designed to stop dangerous ice crystals forming.

The body is then packed in ice and switchred to a facility in the US or Russia.

On arrival it is put into an arctic sleeping bag and cooled by nitrogen gas to -110C over several hours.

In the course of the subsequent two weeks, the body is slowly frozen until it is at a temperature of -196C.

It's then suspended in liquid nitrogen and transferred into a "affected person care bay", the place it should remain indefinitely until science advances.

Cryogenics facilities also supply the choice of neurocryopreservation – where the head is eliminated and frozen with out the body.

Scientists theorise that in the future a new body might be cloned or regenerated for the head to be attached to.

Does cryogenic freezing work? Has it been carried out?

Those that join cry-preservation do so hoping that science will sooner or later convey them back to life.

Presently, doctors would not have the information required to reanimate a frozen corpse.

The Cryonics Institute says that dogs and monkeys have been revived after having their blood replaced with anti-freeze and cooled to under 0C, but not to full cryonic temperatures.

Nematode worms have been preserved on the full -196C and revived, and in 2005 a rabbit kidney was frozen at -135C and efficiently transplanted to an animal.

It is not uncommon for human embryos to be frozen for use in IVF procedures.

How a lot does cryogenic freezing price?

The schoolgirl’s family paid around £37,000 for her body to be preserved, stated Mr Justice Jackson.

The minimal payment for the Cryonics Institute in the US is $28,000 (£22,5000) plus a one-off membership charge of $1,250.

Where can it's achieved?

There are solely three organisations on the earth that provide cryogenic freezing: the Cryonics Institute in Michigan, US – the place the schoolwoman is now preserved, Alcor in Arizona, US and KrioRus in Russia.

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