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New York: A man who wants to be the world's first head transplant patient is set to meet the surgeon who has been lined up to carry out ground-breaking 36-hour procedure.
Computer programmer Valery Spiridonov has the rare genetic Werdnig-Hoffman muscle wasting disease and wants his head to be transplanted to a new body.
The 30-year-old, who only has one leg and is confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life, hopes to have the breakthrough operation in 2017.
Valery, from Vladimir in Russian, has appealed to President Vladimir Putin to help fund research into the pioneering project.
And his dream has moved a step closer as he is set to meet Italian surgeon Sergio Canavero and other leading neurosurgeons next Thursday in New York.
He said: "This is ground-breaking research and we need a lot of funding. If I can get the right body I will look after it and nourish it.
"This could transform the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. Where there is an opportunity there is hope."
Valery admits the prospect of going through with the operation is terrifying.
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He added: "I am afraid, but what people don't really understand is I don't really have many choices.
"If I don't try this out my fate will be very sad. With every year my situation is getting worse."
He added: "My decision is final and I do not plan to change my mind."
Dr Canavero said he had received many emails and letters from people seeking the operation and added that he had already decided the first patient would be someone suffering from a muscle-wasting disease.
The Frankenstein-like procedure has some medical precedent as it was recently reported that Chinese scientists had carried out a head transplant on a mouse.
But most medical experts say a human head transplant is pure fantasy.
President elect of the American Association for Neurological Surgeons Dr Hunt Batjer told CNN: "I would not wish this on anyone.
"I would not allow anyone to do it to me as there are a lot of things worse than death."
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