The brain and nerve cells require a constant supply of oxygen and subsequently they will die within a few minutes, once you stop breathing.
The next to go will be the heart, followed by the liver, the kidneys and pancreas — which can last for about an hour. Skin, tendons, heart valves and corneas will still be alive after a day. White blood cells can keep going for almost three days.
Interestingly, once someone dies, the body quickly enters the so-called “twilight of death” in which gene transcription — the first step of gene expression, where a segment of DNA is copied into RNA — occurs. This could happen within hours or even days after the individual as a whole was declared dead.
For years, researchers have noted that recipients of donor organs often exhibit increased risk of cancer following a transplant, and some researchers think that there could be a link between "twilight of death" gene transcription and this increased cancer risk.
In some sense, in the aftermath of death, the surviving cells start changing their DNA in a state of blind panic, and that could be the very cause of later cancers after transplants.
As if death is a cancer in itself — ready, to strike again.
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