Did I write a function/package just to address the issue with Excel autoconverting genes to date? Yes. An estimated 20% of published articles contain these autoconversion errors according Ziemann et al, and despite the recent HUGO change in these gene symbols in August 2020, I still have to deal with this issue from collaborators. Thought I would share if anyone is interested.
file <- read.csv("data.frame)
file <- exTerminate(file, gene.Column = NULL, mouse = FALSE) #for genes in row names and human data
file <- exTerminate(file, gene.Colum = "genes", mouse = TRUE) #for genes in "genes" vector and mouse data