diff --git a/NEWS.md b/NEWS.md
index 6d4815ce..68e38e08 100644
--- a/NEWS.md
+++ b/NEWS.md
@@ -10,6 +10,10 @@
 * Added new modules `merge_expression_srv` and `merge_expression_module`, updates of `data_merge_srv` and `data_merge_module` 
 (which will be deprecated in future releases) respectively, where `datasets` argument takes a list of (optionally `reactive`) `data.frame` objects and a new argument `join_keys`.
 
+### Miscellaneous
+
+* Updated `merge_expression_module` so when no variable is selected in data extracts then no filtering is applied.
+
 # teal.transform 0.1.1
 
 ### New features
diff --git a/R/merge_expression_module.R b/R/merge_expression_module.R
index 6f55d2e6..628aeb36 100644
--- a/R/merge_expression_module.R
+++ b/R/merge_expression_module.R
@@ -335,8 +335,8 @@ merge_expression_srv <- function(id = "merge_id",
         merge_fun_name <- if (inherits(merge_function, "reactive")) merge_function() else merge_function
         check_merge_function(merge_fun_name)
 
-        ds <- Filter(Negate(is.null), lapply(selector_list(), function(x) x()))
-        validate(need(length(ds) > 0, "At least one dataset needs to be selected"))
+        ds <- Filter(function(e) length(e$select) > 0, lapply(selector_list(), function(x) x()))
+        validate(need(length(ds) > 0, "Nothing selected"))
         merge_datasets(
           selector_list = ds,
           datasets = datasets,