Spotlight: Inter-institutional IRB Collaboration
An important initiative of the ACTSI has been to enhance efficiency, breakdown administrative barriers and accelerate the pace of quality science, IRB reciprocity and collaboration among ACTSI institutions and Atlanta partners. The ACTSI has achieved expanded IRB reciprocity across all ACTSI partner institutions.
The NIH sponsored U54 grant entitled Community Centered Intervention to Improve Outcomes in African Americans with Metabolic Syndrome is a Morehouse School of Medicine-Emory Partnership to Reduce Cardiovascular Health Disparities (5U54RR026137) led by Priscilla Igho-Pemu, MD, MSCR, Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine at MSM and Sandra Dunbar, RN, DSN, Professor of Nursing, Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing, Emory.
According to Dr. Dunbar, "Reciprocity streamlined the process of preparing and submitting renewal applications, streamlined processes at both study sites to assure compliance with IRB requirements, and reduced the inevitable delays inherent in working with different IRBs for this study with 236 participants."