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Informatics Center for Mouse Neurogenetics at the University of Tennessee and Harvard University
FileMaker and Excel at Work in the Lab
In this work, perfectly normal and subtle differences in brain
architecture (numbers of cells, connections between cells, and so
on) can have profound effects on behavior and disease
susceptibility. And slight changes in the way researchers at the
Mouse Brain Library are managing data using FileMaker and Excel are
having profound effects on their ability to organize and share that
information with colleagues around the world.
"As researchers, we often do a great job handling the hard problems
of neuroscience and bioinformatics, but often neglect to take care
of simple housekeeping,” says Dr. Robert Williams, professor at the
University of Tennessee and co-founder of the Mouse Brain Library.
"Over the past few years, our group has become completely dependent
on FileMaker Pro relational databases,” says Dr Williams.
"FileMaker databases have replaced notebooks and spreadsheets for
most lab work and even some primary analysis. The improvement in
lab data acquisition and handling has been amazing and unrelated
files and data sets can often be easily tracked and merged. Best of
all, our lab data are now accessible over the Internet from any
computer in the lab or around the world.”
Finding simple data in a sophisticated lab may sound easy, but the
process can be surprisingly difficult. To confirm the sex and age
of samples, for instance, researchers may have to search through
several sets of lab notebooks and Excel spreadsheets. To determine
the size of related samples, they may have to sift through shoe
boxes full of animal cage cards.
"Entering data directly into a consolidated database greatly
simplifies record keeping and minimizes data loss and data
transcription errors,” says Dr. Williams. "Data should flow from
one stage or level to the next without the need to transcribe or
reformat.”
The path to connected data flow begins by connecting FileMaker and
Excel.
"Most lab researchers use Excel in some capacity to manage lab
data. Since the interface between Excel and FileMaker is so easy,
it's simple to extend Excel beyond disjointed sets of spreadsheets
to a FileMaker Pro relational database,” says Dr. Williams.
Not only does data from Excel easily integrate into FileMaker, but
data from FileMaker easily integrates into Excel.
"By typing in a case identification number, researchers worldwide
have immediate access to information in any of the related
databases -- all of which can easily be exported to Excel for
analysis,” says Dr. Williams. "Excel is excellent for quickly
computing simple statistics, such as the mean, media, average or
errors. But Excel is definitely not a database program.”
He is equally cautionary about what he calls "heavy iron commercial
programs.”
"Oracle and Sybase are a mismatch for the typical laboratory
environment, which needs to change on a weekly, or even daily,
basis,” he says. "Local control, speed and mobility are far more
important than processing speed or high-level feature sets. Most
importantly, you need to retain full control of your own data. And
that's where FileMaker's ability to work so smoothly with Excel is
a huge advantage.”
Small things can have huge impact. For the Mouse Brain Library,
moving to FileMaker and integrating with Excel has helped get
information that may conquer some of the world's most debilitating
diseases into the right hands
"Choosing the right tools for the right jobs is invaluable for
enabling our extended family of neuroscientists to collaborate
effectively with researchers worldwide to share information, avoid
duplicate efforts and advance their research,” says Dr.
Williams.
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Filemaker Contact:
Kevin Mallon
Public Relations Manager
FileMaker Inc.
408-987-7227
kevin_mallon@filemaker.com
http://www.filemaker.com
- Researchers at the Informatics Center for Mouse Neurogenetics are using FileMaker and Excel to organize and share important research data with colleagues around the world.
- Higher Education
- Scientific Research/Biotech