Profiles in Science presents the lives and work of innovators in science, medicine, and public health through in-depth research, curation, and digitization of archival collection materials. This dataset includes full text and metadata describing nearly 30,000 items from Profiles in Science, including digitized correspondence, photographs, laboratory notebooks, diaries, and more that provide insight into the challenges and successes of scientific discovery and the variety of roles, paths, and perspectives involved. The accompanying README.txt file, downloadable from the Attachments section below, provides a recommended citation and methodological information. The Data Dictionary provides documentation on the variable names, data types, and definitions. Profiles in Science in its curated form is available at https://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/ as well as in NLM’s Digital Collections for exploration alongside other publicly available digital content, including books, film, prints, photographs, and manuscripts.