SM: If I were to ask you a question, given what you know of your situation at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and the industry in general, what are some of the opportunities that you would point entrepreneurs toward in the context of research done at HMS? We have discussed this to some extent already, but I would like to know more. What kinds of off-the-shelf solutions are required such that your researchers at HMS don’t have to reinvent the wheel? Can you give me some examples of specific areas where you would like solutions?

MA: Sure. A lot of open opportunities may be available in the public–private cloud area, if I might even call this a ‘switch.’ If there could be some interesting innovation to make that switch easier for people who work with private clouds, or help to tie in a private cloud to public clouds. There could be specific portals that serve as a front end to the cloud and allow researchers to do common types of analysis without having to write code or log into a shell prompt. Those are clear opportunities.

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