Compliance committees keep research in line

A&M-Commerce has a plethora of research going on behind its walls and every study requires an administrator.

In every department that conducts research on campus, there is a committee of faculty members to ensure that the research is being conducted in an ethically and legally conscious manner.

"Research compliance is a very important aspect of research," Dean of Graduate Studies and Research Dr. Allan D. Headley said. "There are various committees at the university that have oversight of various aspects of research."

One such committee is the Institutional Animal Care & Use Committee (IACUC), which exists to make sure that all research involving vertebrate animals are conducted according to specific federal guidelines.

"Our most frequent job is to review all applications from people planning on working with vertebrates in research or teaching, and working with them if necessary to be sure that they are conducting their research according to guidelines," IACUC Chair Dr. Lani Lyman-Henley said.

According to Lyman-Henley, the IACUC is facing some issues this year that they have not had to deal with previously.

"Small animal research is still fairly new here," he said, "so we've been building our program, tracking down who on campus is using live vertebrate animals, and making sure that both the animals and the people working with them are protected and treated in a humane fashion."

Another committee that helps in research compliance is the Institutional Review Board (IRB), which works to ensure the protection of human subjects in research. Human subject research can involve anything from distributing a questionnaire or survey to get people's opinions on something, or to involving human beings in medical research, according to IRB Interim Chair Dr. Robin Reid.

"One of the main functions I do is review all of the protocols that come forward that involve human subjects research at [A&M-Commerce]," she said.

According to Reid, research protocols are the descriptions of the research being done by a researcher. They include whom the subjects will be, where the research will be taking place, what the subjects will be experiencing, and so on.

"One of the most important elements of the IRB ethical standards is that [subjects] will be told up front exactly what to expect," Reid said. "So they know what they will be asked to do. And they can withdraw at any time."

According Reid, if research involves subjects who are considered to be particularly vulnerable, such as minors, convicts or pregnant women, then those research protocols go straight to being reviewed by the full IRB. However, as interim chair, she can sign off on most research protocols without having to involve the entire board.

"Much of the human subjects research is what we call ‘exempt from full-board review,' which means it doesn't have to go to the full Institutional Review Board," she said. "I can just review it to make sure that it does not violate any ethical standards."

Reid said violation of any research guidelines – otherwise known as "non-compliance" – in her department could consist of anything from not submitting a research protocol to the IRB, or turning in a research protocol without including everything the researcher would be doing, and that can lead to ethical dilemmas in research.

"On the ethical side, as an academic researcher, one would hope that people are dedicated to the concept of not harming human beings in their research," she said.

Reid said there are also two legal issues that could result from non-compliance.

"One of the legal issues that would be of concern would be if one of the human subjects were injured or hurt in some way, they could sue the university as well as the researcher," she said.

The second legal issue is one that could impact more than just the researcher in question. According to Reid, if the non-compliance were severe enough, it could affect all research on campus.

"If the federal government came in and did an audit, and found that we were in non-compliance, they could declare a number of penalties, the most severe of which being yanking back of all federal funding for the university," Reid said. "If that were to happen, all of the scholarships that are funded by those federal grants would grind to a halt. This is why research compliance is so important."