Meeting Schedule

The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center has four Institutional Review Boards, or IRBs: Committees A, B, C and D. Generally, any item may be reviewed by any Committee.

General Schedule

Refer to the table below for the full, current schedule of IRB meetings.

Fred Hutch IRB committees normally meet on Wednesdays as follows:

• First Wednesday of the month: Committee D
• Second Wednesday of the month: Committee A
• Third Wednesday of the month: Committee C
• Fourth Wednesday of the month: Committee B

In months with a fifth Wednesday, there is no IRB meeting that week.

Submissions requiring full review are placed on the next available meeting agenda after an item is "review ready." This means IRO staff has assessed the submission and the study team has responded to any staff-requested clarifications, to help ensure that submissions are clear and complete. This is called the screening or pre-review process.

The agenda for an IRB meeting is closed the Thursday before the meeting to allow IRB members sufficient time to review all items. (In rare cases of extremely high submission volumes, an agenda may close earlier.)

PI Responses requiring full review will be assigned to the same Committee that reviewed the original submission.

If requested, the IRB Operations Manager and Committee Chairs may consider adding to the agenda an item received after the agenda has been closed based on the following criteria:

• Modifications to research relating to mitigating safety issues for existing, enrolled participants.
• Urgent issues, such as funding deadlines.
• Single-patient IND activities when the projected treatment date is timely.

Note: Items requiring review by the Cancer Consortium’s Scientific Review Committee (SRC) must first have obtained SRC approval before submitting to the IRB for review. Contact PRMS@fredhutch.org if you have any questions about SRC review. 

IRB Meeting Schedule