Exclusive | Is immortality possible? The technology breakthroughs that could extend human life — and how effective experts say they really are

Birthday cakes would need to come with fire extinguishers if these two world leaders have their way.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping were caught on a hot mic this week discussing scientific approaches to dramatically extending human life, renewing the age-old debate about the potential for people to live to 150.

“Human organs can be continuously transplanted. The longer you live, the younger you become, and [you can] even achieve immortality,” Putin’s interpreter could be heard saying in Chinese.

Xi, who was off camera at the Beijing event, can be heard responding in Chinese: “Some predict that in this century humans may live to 150 years old.”

Jeanne Calment of France has come the closest. She died in 1997 at the age of 122 years and 164 days, the longest documented, verified lifespan.

In the years since, the quest for extreme longevity has become a multibillion-dollar industry of experimental treatments and cutting-edge research aimed at slowing, stopping or even reversing the aging process.

Think nanorobots for precise medicine delivery, bio-engineered organs for transplant and AI-generated digital clones that could “live on” after someone’s death.

But it may be all for naught — researchers have warned that the human body has a biological limit on its ability to recover from illness and stress. Then it’s lights out.

“Biologically, we would need to transform middle-aged people into teenagers; centenarians would need to become young adults; and supercentenarians would need to become like 50–70-year-old people today and stay like that for decades,” S. Jay Olshansky, a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of Illinois Chicago, told The Post about the prospect of living to 150.

“There is nothing available today or visible on the aging science horizon that is even remotely close to achieving this.”

Olshansky published research last year suggesting that the large gains in life expectancy we saw over the past two centuries are slowing and may not be sustainable, despite medical advances, public health initiatives and economic and social progress.

US life expectancy was 78.4 years in 2023 — a slight bump from 75.4 years in 1990 and a dip from 78.8 years in 2019.

The Pew Research Center projects that there will only be about 422,000 centenarian Americans in 2054 — about 0.1% of the population — up from 101,000 in 2024.

The oldest living American is Pennsylvania’s Naomi Whitehead, who turns 115 this month.

Elizabeth Francis, a Houston resident who previously held the title, died in October at the age of 115 years and 89 days.

“To get to 150, we would need periodic, safe rejuvenation of tissues,” biomedical scientist Raphael E. Cuomo, a professor at UC San Diego’s School of Medicine, told The Post.

“That means preventing or curing cancer, cardiovascular disease, neurodegeneration, infection, renal failure and frailty together,” Cuomo said. “It also means resetting epigenetic and proteostatic damage and replacing failing organs without lifelong immunosuppression.”

Here’s a look at some of the technology that biohackers hope will push human longevity to the brink.

Nanobots

Researchers envision tiny robots in the bloodstream delivering medicine to affected cells, detecting disease and repairing damaged tissues.

Progress has been made in this emerging field, but these teensy troubleshooters are still a long way from being a widespread reality.

“Nanobots show promise in the lab, not in the clinic,” Cuomo said.

Organ transplants and synthetic organs

Transplanted organs can last years or even decades, but not forever.

The immune system often identifies the transplanted organ as a foreign object and attacks it. The factors that necessitated the transplant — like the patient’s underlying health conditions or poor lifestyle choices — can also threaten the success of the new organ.

Bio-engineered organs could extend lifespan by addressing donor organ shortage, immune rejection and age-related organ failure.

There have been steps in this direction — the first genetically-edited pig kidney was transplanted into a living person last year. The 62-year-old recipient died weeks later, though doctors say it was because he experienced a heart problem.

“The reality is that aging is systemic — your brain, immune system and vasculature all age together, rather than your organs alone,” Dr. Pooja Gidwani, a concierge longevity physician in L.A., told The Post.

“You can swap out failing parts, but you can’t expect a reset of the entire machine that is the human body.”

Stem cell therapy

A study last year out of Lebanon called stem cell therapy “one of the most promising therapies to control aging, due to the fact that single stem cell transplantation can regenerate or substitute the injured tissue.”

Gidwani noted that “we are not at a stage where [stem cells] can rebuild entire bodies.”

The treatment also comes with complex ethical issues, like the source of the stem cells, along with the risk that their uncontrolled growth could lead to tumors.

Plasma exchange therapy

Removing a person’s plasma — the yellowish liquid portion of blood — and replacing it with a toxin-free substitute has long been used to treat blood disorders and autoimmune diseases.

Now, it’s a popular service at longevity clinics even though it has not been proven to improve lifespan in healthy people.

Small studies have shown promise. Dr. Michael Aziz, author of “The Ageless Revolution,” pointed out that plasma exchange knocked two years off participants’ biological ages in one trial.

‘Digital immortality’ with AI

There are bots that can mimic your voice and writing style, but you are still one of a kind.

“Digital immortality” is the idea that your consciousness, personality or legacy can live on in an AI-powered replica after your death.

“Not possible with today’s science,” Cuomo said. “We cannot yet capture or emulate a human mind.”

Other technology that aims to extend lifespan

“To realistically add decades, you’d need to slow aging at the cellular level: repairing DNA damage, preserving mitochondrial function (the cell’s energy source), improving metabolic health and reducing the chronic inflammation that accelerates disease,” Gidwani said.

“That’s why the most exciting research today is focused on epigenetic reprogramming, which is essentially resetting cells to a more youthful state, and senolytic drugs that clear out toxic ‘zombie’ cells,” she added. “These strategies target the very biology of aging itself.”

Gidwani said it’s more realistic to add 10 to 20 healthier years to your life by using wearable technology and advanced medical scans to proactively detect early signs of problems and tackle them with targeted therapies — and oh yeah, by eating well and exercising.