{
  "abstract": "Institutional review boards (IRBs) play a crucial role in ensuring the ethical conduct of human subjects research, but face challenges including inconsistency, delays, and inefficiencies. We propose the development and implementation of application-specific large language models (LLMs) to facilitate IRB review processes. These IRB-specific LLMs would be fine-tuned on IRB-specific literature and institutional datasets, and equipped with retrieval capabilities to access up-to-date, context-relevant information. We outline potential applications, including pre-review screening, preliminary analysis, consistency checking, and decision support. While addressing concerns about accuracy, context sensitivity, and human oversight, we acknowledge remaining challenges such as over-reliance on artificial intelligence and the need for transparency. By enhancing the efficiency and quality of ethical review while maintaining human judgement in critical decisions, IRB-specific LLMs offer a promising tool to improve research oversight. We call for pilot studies to evaluate the feasibility and impact of this approach.",
  "authors": [
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Centre for Advanced Studies in Bioscience Innovation Law (CeBIL), Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark",
        "Faculty of Law, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK",
        "Centre for Biomedical Ethics, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore"
      ],
      "name": "Sebastian Porsdam Mann"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Centre for Biomedical Ethics, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore"
      ],
      "name": "Jiehao Joel Seah"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Yale Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA"
      ],
      "name": "Stephen Latham"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Centre for Biomedical Ethics, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore",
        "Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK"
      ],
      "name": "Julian Savulescu"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Centre for Law, Medicine, and Life Sciences (LML) & Centre for Intellectual Property and InformationLaw (CIPIL), Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK"
      ],
      "name": "Mateo Aboy"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Centre for Biomedical Ethics, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore",
        "Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK"
      ],
      "name": "Brian D Earp"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Chat-IRB? How application-specific language models can enhance research ethics review",
  "uid": "738279d4-8fb3-5714-97ca-25ca66d1fdda"
}