Question

What is the role of the IRB? Maximum number of characters (including HTML tags added by text editor): 32,000 Show Rich-Text Editor (and character count)

Answer 1

IRB stands for institutional review board. It is an administrative body set up with the purpose to protect the rights and welfare of human subjects participating in research activities being conducted under its authority.

IRB guards the rights of human subjects involved in research by ensuring the following steps:

• Minimising the risks to human research subjects by use of procedures that are consistent with sound research design and not unnecessarily exposing the research participants to risk

• Equitable selection of human subjects for research participation
  
• Providing full information to the Human subjects about the risks and benefits of research participation and the procedures involved in the research
• Getting informed consent from each human research subject in accordance with federal regulations and IRB policies.
• making adequate provisions for monitoring the data collected whenever possible to ensure the safety of human research subjects.
  
• protect the privacy of human research subjects and to maintain the confidentiality of research data.
  
• Using measures to safeguards human subjects involved in research who are likely to be vulnerable to coercion or undue influence like prisoners, pregnant women and children, poor and educationally underprivileged people.