Chattanooga Institutional Review Board

The UT College of Medicine Chattanooga and Erlanger have established an Institutional Review Board (IRB) to review research projects and ensure the protection of human subjects involved. The Chair of the IRB is Manoo Bhakta, MD.  Questions about the IRB and informed consent can be addressed to Stacey Hendricks, CIM, IRB Administrator. Ms. Hendricks' office is located in Suite 100 of the Whitehall Building (across from Erlanger) with the Office of the Dean. 

All requests for expedited and exempt review must be received by the IRB Administrator no later than 5:00 pm on Monday to be reviewed within the week.  Requests received after 5:00 pm on Monday will be reviewed the following week; therefore, you can plan for all expedited and exempt reviews to be completed within 5 to 10 business days.

The IRB meets monthly to discuss requests that require full board review. The meetings occur on the fourth Wednesday of most months at 8:00 am and have been set in the Dean's Conference Room, Suite 100, in the Whitehall Building. (Exceptions are noted with an asterisk in the table below.)  Due to the COVID-19 pandemic this year, meetings have been moved to a Zoom format until further notice.

Investigators are required to participate in these meetings to present new proposals and revisions to currently approved protocols.  Investigators and research coordinators may attend to present continuing review information as well as serious adverse events reported on-site. Investigators will be scheduled according to the order requests are received.  All requests must be received by noon on the submission deadline date.

For IRB-related forms, click here. 

Reminder:
All expedited and exempt IRB submissions must be scanned and emailed to the IRB office on Monday’s by 5pm in order for IRB Chair review that week.  Submissions received after this deadline will be reviewed the following week.  Submissions that require SRC/IRB full Board review, submission deadline remains the 1^st Wednesday of every month.  The IRB submission page as well as the forms page have both been updated with this information.