Researchers noted that Excel is the source of mistakes in genetic research

ByJohn Gardner

Excel has a function to automatically convert to date and currency when numbers are entered. Although it is a convenient function depending on usage, researchers have pointed out that in genetic research, this function causes a lot of mistakes in the literature.

Gene name errors are widespread in the scientific literature | Genome Biology | Full Text
https://genomebiology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13059-016-1044-7


Genome Spot: My personal thoughts on gene name errors
http://genomespot.blogspot.jp/2016/08/my-personal-thoughts-on-gene-name-errors.html

Microsoft Excel blamed for gene study errors - BBC News
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-37176926

This point is in MelbourneBaker IDI Heart and Diabetes Research InstituteThings carried out in the paper published by Mr. Mark Zeeman et al. She already has a big reaction and Mr. Zieman is supplementing it with his blog and responding to the reaction.

Mr. Zieman et al. Investigated 3597 academic papers published. As a result, we discovered that "gene name error" by Excel occurred in 704 cases. As a specific example, "SEPT 2 (Septin 2)Although there is a gene called Excel, Excel interprets this "SEPT" as "September (September)" and automatically converts it to "September 2". It is a very useful feature when entering a number of dates and currencies, like when putting a household account book, but that has become a riddle.

The problem was first raised in 2004, and over the next five years it has increased by 15% per year.

According to Assam El el Oosta, one of the authors of the paper, this kind of "error" seems to be found especially in supplementary data of research. El = Osta says that solving this error is "a waste of time."

Meanwhile, Ewan Barney, director of the European Bioinformatics Institute, told the BBC, "I am disappointed that researchers rely on Excel spreadsheets in clinical trials." As mentioned above, the occurrence of "gene name error" in Excel is information shared for more than 10 years, it is not "fault of Excel".

About Microsoft's spokesman, Microsoft spokesperson assumed that default setting of Excel is for daily use and can be set according to specific needs, so "genetic name error" can be overcome by changing setting I am talking.

Incidentally, in addition to Excel, this "gene name error"Apache OpenOffice CalcHowever, we know that Google spreadsheets will not happen.