Before the advancement of scientific data storage and collaboration via the cloud, medical investigators seeking health research breakthroughs had to overcome significant obstacles to collaboration and key clinical data gathering. Data were siloed and difficult to distribute, so those looking to undertake research had no option but to gather them themselves. This not only made research more expensive, but it was challenging to compare findings across datasets. In 1975, researchers studying arrhythmias at MIT and Boston’s Beth Israel Hospital envisioned another way: the team began collecting and digitizing electrocardiogram recordings with the intention of not only studying them, but of also making them available to the wider research community. The team built their own computers for the process, painstakingly duplicated tapes one by one, and created more than 100,000……

That tension persists today. PhysioNet’s founders embraced a different model, believing that sharing research resources could accelerate discovery and ultimately improve human health, he says. MIMIC became central to Pollard’s dissertation, and after completing his PhD, he came to MIT to help build the next generation of the database. In the years since PhysioNet was established, the value of sharing research data has gained much wider recognition. The late Roger Mark, MIT’s distinguished professor of health sciences and technology emeritus and one of PhysioNet’s founders, described its purpose as bu…