According to the Amputee Coalition, approximately 185,000 amputations occur in the United States each year and 3.6 million people will be living with limb loss by 2050. These are numbers that cannot be ignored and now, MIT is planning to do something about it.

Their solution is straight out of a sci-fi film with the proposal to meld humans with machines in order to address amputations and other physical and neurological disabilities. The newly formed MIT research center is called the K. Lisa Yang Center for Bionics and it has been established thanks to a $24 million donation from philanthropist Lisa Yang.

“The K. Lisa Yang Center for Bionics will provide a dynamic hub for scientists, engineers, and designers across MIT to work together on revolutionary answers to the challenges of disability,” MIT President L. Rafael Reif said in a statement. Reif added that with this visionary gift, Yang was sending a signal to the world that the lives of individuals who experience disability matter deeply.