Caltech and UCLA have launched highly productive collaborations in cancer research and other areas of biomedicine in recent years, frequently through the Caltech lab of Nobel Laureate and President Emeritus David Baltimore. Now, an endowment established by the Raymond and Beverly Sackler Foundation will strengthen the Caltech-UCLA partnership and advance the Baltimore lab’s interdisciplinary research into areas where mathematics and engineering converge with biology.

Imagine if doctors could perform surgery without ever having to cut through your skin. Or if they could diagnose cancer by seeing tumors inside the body with a procedure that is as simple as an ultrasound. Thanks to a technique developed by engineers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), all of that may be possible in the not-so-distant future.

Our bodies are full of tiny superheroes—antibodies that fight foreign invaders, cells that regenerate, and structures that ensure our systems run smoothly. One such structure is myelin, a material that forms a protective cape around the axons of our nerve cells so that they can send signals quickly and efficiently. But myelin becomes damaged in demyelinating diseases like multiple sclerosis, leaving neurons without their sheaths. Researchers from Caltech now believe they have found a way to help the brain replace damaged myelin.