When reviewing a study you’ve been assigned for a meeting, please remember to take a look at all of the previously entered contingencies, notes, and comments. You can find these under both the “Other Committees” and “My Committee” tab. (You don’t need to look at “required changes;” those are entered by budget reviewers and others […]

We know the regulations governing human subject research can seem cumbersome. But when we read about the things that happened before such research was regulated, we can understand their intent better. A recent National Public Radio story about raced-based testing of chemical agents during WWII highlights the types of activities that seem to be have […]

  We’ve had several requests to put together a list of commonly used IRB acronyms. Below is what we could come up with right off the top of our heads. Please let Edith Paal in the IRB office know if there are others you’re curious about – we can track them down for you.   […]

The short answer: You may not need to review it at all. Please check with the IRB office (Edith Paal prereviews almost all of the new submissions before you see them, so she’d be a good place to start) to see if you need to do anything with the CRF in the file. The less […]

If you’ve been assigned an audit to review for an upcoming meeting, and have some questions about the audit report, please keep in mind that you are welcome to contact Office of Research Compliance (ORC) staff before the meeting for more information. The auditors involved in each audit are listed on the front page of […]

Not all that long ago, researchers and IRBs didn’t have to wrestle with the larger implications of genetics research. Scientific advances in this area mean we now have to consider the implications of the use and study of genetic information. An upcoming lecture will address one aspect of this issue, and we encourage reviewers to […]

Ideally, human research protection programs (HRPPs) stay out of the “above the fold” position in newspapers, because “above the fold” is where stories about big failures tend to wind up (or did, back when printed newspapers were still really a thing*; “on the homepage” may be a better way to put it now). The University […]

The UAMS Institutional Review Board has been fully accredited by the Association for the Accreditation of Human Research Protection Programs (AAHRPP) since 2005. In fact, we were one of the first two dozen or so institutions to earn that accreditation when it became available. Our next reaccreditation application is due in the fall of 2015, […]

Check one of your Certified Research Specialist requirements off your to-do list by attending an upcoming live class – and earn some SOCRA credit to boot. Dr. Thomas Cunningham of the Medical Humanities department is scheduled to present a class on Research Misconduct Friday, May 29, from 11 am to 1 pm. The class will take place in […]

Additional copies of the IRB Member Handbook have arrived. Please send an email to paalediths@uams.edu if you need a copy. We are also bringing them to each week’s meeting to distribute as needed. Please note you do NOT need to replace an older edition of this book that you may already have. The changes in […]