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The growing amount of data produced through digital technologies holds great promise for advancing behavioral research. Scholars worldwide now have the chance to access an incredible amount of personal information, thanks to the digital trace users continuously leave behind them. Private corporations play a crucial role in this scenario as the leading collectors of data on users, thus creating new incentives for partnerships between academic institutions and private companies. Due to the concerns that academic-company partnerships might raise and the ethical issues connected with Big Data research, our study explores the challenges and opportunities associated with the academic use of corporate data. We conducted 39 semi-structured interviews with academic scholars (professors, senior researchers, and postdocs) involved in Big Data research in Switzerland and the United States. We also investigated their opinions on using corporate data for scholarly research. Researchers generally showed an interest in using corporate data; however, they coincidentally shared ethical reservations towards this practice, such as threats to research integrity and concerns about a lack of transparency of companies' practices. Furthermore, participants mentioned issues of scholarly access to corporate data that might both disadvantage the academic research community and create issues of scientific validity. Academic-company partnerships could be a positive development for the advancement of scholarly behavioral research. However, strategies should be implemented to appropriately guide collaborations and appropriate use of corporate data, like implementing updated protocols and tools to govern conflicts of interest and the institution of transparent regulatory bodies to ensure adequate oversight of academic-corporate research collaborations., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2023 Favaretto et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Research ethics has traditionally been guided by well-established documents such as the Belmont Report and the Declaration of Helsinki. At the same time, the introduction of Big Data methods, that is having a great impact in behavioral research, is raising complex ethical issues that make protection of research participants an increasingly difficult challenge. By conducting 39 semi-structured interviews with academic scholars in both Switzerland and United States, our research aims at exploring the code of ethics and research practices of academic scholars involved in Big Data studies in the fields of psychology and sociology to understand if the principles set by the Belmont Report are still considered relevant in Big Data research. Our study shows how scholars generally find traditional principles to be a suitable guide to perform ethical data research but, at the same time, they recognized and elaborated on the challenges embedded in their practical application. In addition, due to the growing introduction of new actors in scholarly research, such as data holders and owners, it was also questioned whether responsibility to protect research participants should fall solely on investigators. In order to appropriately address ethics issues in Big Data research projects, education in ethics, exchange and dialogue between research teams and scholars from different disciplines should be enhanced. In addition, models of consultancy and shared responsibility between investigators, data owners and review boards should be implemented in order to ensure better protection of research participants., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

The employment of Big Data as an increasingly used research method has introduced novel challenges to ethical research practices and to ethics committees (ECs) globally. The aim of this study is to explore the experiences of scholars with ECs in the ethical evaluation of Big Data projects. Thirty-five interviews were performed with Swiss and American researchers involved in Big Data research in psychology and sociology. The interviews were analyzed using thematic coding. Our respondents reported lack of support from ECs, absence of appropriate expertise among members of the boards, and lack of harmonized evaluation criteria between committees. To implement ECs practices we argue for updating the expertise of board members and the institution of a consultancy model between researchers and ECs.

AMD3100 (plerixafor, Mozobil®) was first identified as an anti-HIV agent specifically active against the T4-lymphotropic HIV strains, as it selectively blocked the CXCR4 receptor. Through interference with the interaction of CXCR4 with its natural ligand, SDF-1 (also named CXCL12), it also mobilized the CD34 + stem cells from the bone marrow into the peripheral blood stream. In December 2008, AMD3100 was formally approved by the US FDA for autologous transplantation in patients with Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma or multiple myeloma. It may be beneficially used in various other malignant diseases as well as hereditary immunological disorders such as WHIM syndrome, and physiopathological processes such as hepatopulmonary syndrome.

The occasion of this 25th anniversary issue encouraged us to reminisce about the important history of the discovery of the dideoxynucleoside analogues for the treatment of HIV/AIDS and to chronicle our thoughts about a particular exciting and rewarding period of our scientific careers. Following the identification of the anti-HIV activity of zidovudine (AZT), we participated in the urgent quest to discover optimal treatments of HIV infection and AIDS. A number of previously synthesized nucleoside analogues were comparatively evaluated, and stavudine (D4T) emerged as a promising candidate for development. Following clinical evaluation, D4T became a mainstay of the initial antiretroviral combination therapy, prolonging and saving numerous lives. It has only recently been supplanted by better-tolerated treatments. This article forms part of a special issue of Antiviral Research marking the 25th anniversary of antiretroviral drug discovery and development, vol. 85, issue 1, 2010., (Copyright 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

It is now generally accepted that mono- and bitherapy for human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) infection are only transiently efficient mainly due to virus drug resistance. To obtain a sustained benefit from antiviral therapy, current guidelines recommend at least triple-drug combinations, or the so-called highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART). In some patients, HAART can be problematic, either because it is difficult to remain compliant or because previous suboptimum therapies have limited the choice of drugs. For compliant drug-naive patients, HAART should be able to offer long-term virus suppression, when changing from first- to second- to third-line HAART at drug failure. Long-term treatment might ultimately result in multi-drug resistant virus leaving few options for salvage therapy. HIV drug resistance testing to guide this salvage therapy and the development of new drugs to allow new options will therefore remain priorities in anti-HIV drug research.