ACTSI Convenes IRB Officials from Seven Atlanta Research Institutions

IRB officials from ACTSI partners, Emory, Morehouse School of Medicine, Georgia Tech, Kaiser Georgia, Atlanta VA, Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, and Grady, met face-to-face for the first time, during an ACTSI Leadership Council meeting in 2009. The ACTSI strives to build collaboration across these institutions and the IRBs are critical to relationship building. The council and IRB officials discussed current and future collaborations, successes, and challenges. The ACTSI asked straight-forward questions and received honest answers from the officials. Discussion topics included: the status of authorization agreements, investigator concerns, the Grady Research Oversight Committee (ROC), simultaneous submissions, IRB guidelines, training requirements, and board meeting schedules. The seven IRB officials will meet throughout 2010, organized by the ACTSI's Ethics & Regulatory program, and during the November 2010 ACTSI Leadership Council meeting.