TEES Blog – Research Services

Starting January 1, 2009, the Human Subjects’ Protection Program (HSPP) and Institutional Review Board (IRB) at Texas A&M University will no longer accept the combination of VPR and NIH training. The only training accepted will be the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI) course. All new Initial Review or Continuing Review applications will not be reviewed without submission of a CITI completion report.

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The first issue of the Human Subjects’ Herald, a publication of the Human Subjects’ Protection Program and the Institutional Review Board, is now complete and published on the program’s website. Each bi-monthly issue can be found at http://researchcompliance.tamu.edu/irb under the “HSPP Newsletter” section.

The main goal of the Human Subjects’ Herald is to emphasize the importance of research compliance. Each issue will address common concerns, frequently asked questions, helpful tools, etc. Important dates and new training requirements will also be communicated through the newsletter, in addition to on the program’s website.

Investigators are encouraged to read each issue of the Human Subjects’ Herald before submitting an application to better understand the processes of compliance at Texas A&M University.

 You may contact Melissa McIlhaney at (979) 458-4067 or at mcilhaney@tamu.edu if you have any questions.

The Human Subjects’ Protection Program (HSPP) and the Institutional Review Board (IRB) will be implementing new training requirements in the coming year. Currently, training through the Division of Research and Graduate Studies and the National Institutes of Health have sufficed for human subjects’ training, but as of January 1, 2009, only the Collaborative Institution Training Initiative (CITI) course will be accepted. Investigators will be required to submit CITI completion with new Initial or Continuing Review Applications.

Also starting January 1st, the CITI refresher course will be implemented. The refresher course is similar to the initial CITI course, but it is more condensed and has more complicated scenarios. The refresher course will be required two years from the date of Investigators’ CITI course completion.

More information about the CITI course can be found on the HSPP/IRB website at http://researchcompliance.tamu.edu/irbunder the “IRB Training”
section.

You may contact Melissa McIlhaney at (979) 458-4067 or at mcilhaney@tamu.eduif you have any questions.

The Texas A&M Institutional Review Board recently approved two new versions of the application for the use of human subjects in research. One version of the application is for applying for exempt status and the other version will be for standard review. Together, these two applications offer investigators more flexibility when applying to conduct human subject research. The exempt application is abbreviated and seeks only information needed to make an exempt determination. The standard application requests a more detailed description of the research protocol in order to ensure a thorough review. Both applications are on the Human Subjects’ Protection Program Web site and are ready for immediate use. In order to accommodate applications in progress, the previous version of the application will be accepted until Oct. 12. Contact Melissa McIlhaney at 458-4067or mcilhaney@tamu.edu with any questions. The applications may be found at http://researchcompliance.tamu.edu/irb in the Information for Investigators section.