Join OHRP's and OLAW's News Distribution Lists

The Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP)and the Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare (OLAW) invites all researchers to sign up for their news distribution lists. These act a primary source of news, regulatory changes and updates from the federal perspective.

Go to http://grants1.nih.gov/grants/olaw/references/list.htm to sign up for the OLAW LISTSERV or http://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/news/distributionlist.html for the OHRP distribution list.

HARPO will be closed

The office will be closed for winter break, beginning December 24, 2008 through January 2, 2009. We'll reopen on January 5, 2009.

Reminder - Next IACUC meetings for 2009

The UMBC IACUC meets four (4) times a year. This allows the committee time for sufficient review of new or renewal protocol applications. The next meetings are scheduled for April, 2009 and July, 2009. Therefore, animal research applications must be submitted to HARPO no later than February 15, 2009 for the April meeting and May 15, 2009 for the July meeting.

Application forms and instructions may be found at http://www.umbc.edu/iacuc/iacucforms.htm.

Student Research Within a Faculty Advisor’s Approved Protocol

Student researchers will, at times, develop ideas for research projects as part of a senior thesis, master’s project or doctoral dissertation. that involve using data collected on a faculty advisor’s IRB approved protocol. The IRB will allow this provided the level of risk does not change, no additional benefits are realized by participants, and the scope of the student’s research project does not significantly differ from the parent protocol.

Rather than burden a student researcher with completing a full application for review and approval, the IRB has developed a Thesis, Masters or Dissertation Research Notification form. This form will assist the IRB in monitoring if the planned activities of the project are already part of a previously IRB approved protocol and/or if there will be any modifications (to risks, consent processes, use of identifiers, etc.) during the course of the research project that will change the provisions of the approved protocol.

If you have a project that falls within this category, download this form (http://www.umbc.edu/irb/tmdr_application.doc) and follow the directions.

Contact HARPO at 5-2737 or HARPO@umbc.edu with any questions.

International laws, regulations, and guidelines on human subject protections

The Office for Human Research Protections has just released a compendium of human subject protections laws, regulations, and guidelines (almost 1,100 in all) from 92 countries. The list includes web addresses to link directly to the law, regulation, or guideline of interest.

Go to http://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/international/HSPCompilation.pdf for more information.

So, if you're planning an international-based research study, it would behoove you (I like that word!) to investigate whether or not additional research protections are required.