Overview

On September 23, from 1:00 – 2:30 PM EDT, PRIM&R hosted a 90-minute webinar titled The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Genome-Wide Association Studies (GWAS) Policy: Responsibilities of Investigators and IRBs.  This webinar featured a discussion of the 2007 NIH GWAS Policy, including how to understand and apply the policy to your work.  Audience members heard from the NIH as well as from an institution with experience in submitting and accessing data from the NIH GWAS Repository.

Laura Lyman-Rodriguez, a representative of the NIH, reviewed: 

• Who and what does this policy cover?
• What does adhering to the policy entail?

She answered questions such as:

• How do you submit data into the NIH GWAS Repository?
• How do you access data from the NIH GWAS Repository?
• What is the role of Data Access Committees (DACs)?

P. Pearl O’Rourke, a representative of a local institution working with the NIH GWAS Repository, illustrated, with real-life examples, some of the challenges of implementing the NIH GWAS policy. For example, she addressed:

• What is the role of the local institutional review board (IRB)?
• How do you assess the adequacy of your informed consent under this policy?
• How do you handle data submissions that involve multiple sites?
• How do the roles of IRBs and DACs overlap?