Don Cleveland is Professor of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at UC San Diego. He has been elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Medicine. He purified and characterized the first microtubule associated protein – tau – which misassembles in affected neurons in Alzheimer’s disease. He uncovered mechanisms underlying ALS and developed “designer DNA drugs” for silencing disease-causing genes responsible for the major diseases of the nervous system, with clinical trials now ongoing in ALS, Huntington’s, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s diseases. For these efforts, he received the 2018 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences and the 2023 Rainwater Prize.