At the places the early MySQL was developed (Analytikerna and Lentus), the founders did systems and field work for a big research project. This project was a collaboration between the Institute of Environmental Medicine at Karolinska Institutet Stockholm and the Section on Clinical Research in Aging and Psychology at the University of Southern California.

The project involved lots of data collection from all twins in Sweden older than 65 Years (see http://ki.se/ki/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=9610&l=en).

Large parts of the project were administered with a Web interface written using Perl and MySQL.