Is it possible to become immortal through organ transplantation?
That was an unexpected topic. talks between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian leader Vladimir Putin during a military parade in Beijing.
The interpreter, who translated Putin's words into Mandarin, told Xi how human organs could be transplanted over and over again "so that a person becomes younger and younger" despite their actual age and could even postpone old age "indefinitely."
"It is predicted that in this century it will be possible to live to the age of 150," he added.
Their smiles and laughter suggest that it was a somewhat humorous conversation, but is there perhaps some truth to all of this?
Organ transplants can certainly save lives - more than 30 people have been saved in the UK in the last 100.000 years, according to the British National Health Service.
And constant advances in medicine and technology mean that a single organ transplant now lasts much longer in humans.
Some people have had a kidney transplant that has been functioning for more than 50 years.
The lifespan of an organ depends on how healthy the donor and recipient are, as well as how well they are cared for.
For example, if you were to receive a new kidney from a living donor, you could expect it to last 20 to 25 years.
If you get it from a deceased donor, that drops to 15 to 20 years.
The type of organ is also important.
The liver could last about 20 years, the heart 15 years, and the lungs almost 10 years, according to research published in Journal of Medical Economics.
Listen to Xi and Putin's conversation about organ transplants and immortality
A ticket to eternal life?
Putin and Xi could talk about transplanting multiple organs and perhaps transplanting them over and over again.
Undergoing surgery, however, is a big deal, with significant risks.
Every time you go under the knife, you're practically rolling the dice.
Currently, people who receive a new organ also have to take strong anti-organ rejection medications called immunosuppressants for the rest of their lives.
They can have side effects, such as high blood pressure and increase the risk of infections.
Rejection, when your immune system starts to attack the transplanted organ because it recognizes it as coming from another person, can sometimes still happen even if you take these medications.
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Custom bodies
Scientists are working to create organs that do not reject the host, using genetically modified pigs as donors.
They use a gene editing tool known as crispp to remove some of the pig genes and add certain human genes to make the organ more compatible.
Breeding special pigs for this is ideal, experts say, since their organs are about the right size for humans.
This branch of science is still extremely experimental in nature, although heart and kidney surgeries are still performed.
The two men who agreed to the procedure were pioneers of this new field of transplant medicine.
Both have since died, but they helped advance xenotransplantation - the transplantation of living cells, tissues or organs from one species into another.
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Another direction being explored is growing entirely new organs using our own human cells.
Stem cells have the ability to grow into any type of cell or tissue that can be found in the body.
No research group has yet succeeded in creating a fully functional human organ that can be transplanted, but scientists are getting closer.
In December 2020, British researchers at UCL and the Francis Crick Institute recreated a human mammary gland - a key organ in the immune system - using human stem cells and bioengineered "scaffolds".
When it was transplanted into mice as a test, it seemed to work.
And scientists at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London say they have succeeded in growing human intestinal transplants using stem cells from a patient's own tissue, which could one day lead to personalized transplants for children with bowel diseases.
But these advances are for treating ill health, rather than keeping people alive until they are 150.
Tech entrepreneur Brian Johnson spends millions a year trying to reduce his own biological age.
He hasn't tried the new organs yet (as far as we know), but he has injected himself with his 17-year-old son's plasma.
In the meantime, he stopped, after seeing no benefits from the procedure and due to increased medical scrutiny by organizations such as the Food and Drug Administration.
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Dr Julian Mack of King's College London said that in addition to organ transplants, approaches such as plasma exchange are being explored, but they remain at an experimental level.
"Whether such strategies will have a significant impact on lifespan, particularly maximum human lifespan, remains uncertain, although it is an area of significant scientific interest."
Professor Neil Mabbott, an expert in immunopathology at the Roslin Institute, University of Edinburgh, speculates that living to 125 could be an upper limit.
"The oldest confirmed person in the world is the Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment who lived for 122 years, between 1875 and 1997," he told the BBC.
And although damaged and diseased organs can be replaced with transplants, as we age our bodies become less resilient or able to cope with physical stressors.
"We begin to respond less effectively to infections, and our bodies become increasingly fragile, more prone to injury, and less able to recover and repair themselves."
"The stress, trauma and aftereffects of transplant surgery, along with the constant use of immunosuppressive drugs necessary to prevent rejection of transplanted organs, would be too much for patients at such an advanced age."
Instead of focusing on extending lifespan, we should aim for healthy years of life lived, he says.
"Living longer but suffering from a host of morbidities that might accompany aging and constantly being in and out of hospital for yet another tissue transplant doesn't sound like a particularly appealing way to spend your retirement!" says Professor Mabbott:
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