RESPECT FOR PERSONS, BENEFICENCE, AND JUSTICE

Welcome to the University of the District of Columbia Institutional Review Board for the Protection of Human Research Participants Home Page.

This site has been created as a tool to educate and support researchers and research participants.  It explains the general policies and responsibilities of the IRB and the application - review process. It provides the information needed to evaluate whether a research requires IRB approval before it may proceed. The site links to training and other resources.  Forms and checklists are available here.

The purpose of the University of the District of Columbia Institutional Review Board (UDC IRB) is to protect the rights and welfare of human participants recruited to participate in research activities conducted under the auspices of UDC.  “Research” is defined as systematic investigations, including research development, testing and evaluation, designed to develop or contribute to generalizable knowledge and involving intervention or interaction with living persons and/or the collection of identifiable private information about individuals.

The rationale for ethical principles to guide research involving human participants has a long history, growing out of such violations of human rights and welfare as the Nazi experimentation on Jewish captives and the U.S. Public Health Service 40-year Tuskegee experiment on untreated syphilis among African American men.  There are links on this website to the various codes for the ethical conduct of human participants research promulgated since 1945.  The most recent version of the regulations is based on the Belmont Report (1978), which was adopted in 1991 by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to establish rules for institutions engaging in research. These rules were codified as Title 45 Part 46 of the Code of Federal Regulations (45 CFR 46), generally known as the Common Rule.  Promulgated by 16 federal agencies that conduct or regulate human participants research, the policy sets forth three quintessential principles for the ethical conduct of research involving human participants:  Respect for Persons, Beneficence, and Justice.

The UDC IRB has registered with DHHS Office of Human Research Protections (IRB00003641) and has filed an assurance with DHHS called the Federal wide Assurance (UDC FWA # 00005335) to comply with these regulations and ethical principles.
For further information after reviewing this Website, please contact:

University of the District of Columbia
4200 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20008
UDC IRB E-mail: irb@udc.edu
UDC IRB Webpage: www.udc.edu/irb

Vijaya Melnick, Ph.D. Director
Office of Sponsored Research and Programs
Building 41, Room 310
Telephone: 202-274-5499
Email:  vmelnick@udc.edu

John L. Murphy, Ph.D., MPH, Chair
Institutional Review Board
Building 41, Room 400-02
Telephone:  202-274-5679
Email:  jmurphy@udc.edu

Prepared by the University of the District of Columbia Institutional Review Board (UDC IRB) with reference to the Institutional Review Board Guidebook (http://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/irb/irb_guidebook.htm).  The UDC IRB acknowledges the assis tance of the College of Charleston, which shared its web materials, on which UDC’s materials are based.  The UDC IRB is also indebted to many other fine university web sites which it has visited in the course of preparing these ma terials, and in particular commends the design and content of the University of Maryland Baltimore Campus website.