The Midwestern Universities Research Association (MURA) was a collaboration between 15 universities with the goal of designing and building a particle accelerator for the Midwestern United States. It existed between 1953–1967, but could not achieve its goal in this time and lost funding. It was thought that President John F. Kennedy would have supported the MURA machine, while one of President Lyndon B. Johnson 's first actions was the shutdown of the MURA machine and laboratory.