

Life without source control – share your most painful moments. - Sloven
http://www.troyhunt.com/2012/09/life-without-source-control-share-your.html

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jboggan
A bioinformatics lab I worked at developed a novel method of cancer drug
prediction based on comparative genetic network expression from microarray
data of normal and cancerous cell lines. First predictions were promising and
small scale trials were done with the novel compounds. Very impressive results
and a good paper resulted from this which supported further grants for larger
trials. Then the lead researcher died unexpectedly.

Source code for the original prediction algorithm? Nowhere to be found.
Intermediary data? Nada. We spent weeks combing through desktop, personal, and
distributed computers trying to find that code to no avail. No more cancer
drug experiments. The worst part to me was that this method looked for pre-
existing naturally occurring compounds that were merely lacking in cancerous
cells - hence reintroducing them would have much lower theoretical toxicity
than other anti-cancer compounds. It's still theoretical because proper source
control wasn't used.

