Journal article
Chat-IRB? How application-specific language models can enhance research ethics review
- 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.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 273.8KB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1136/jme-2025-110845
Authors
+ Wellcome Trust
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- Funder identifier:
- https://ror.org/029chgv08
- Grant:
- 226801/Z/22/Z
- Publisher:
- BMJ Publishing Group
- Journal:
- Journal of Medical Ethics More from this journal
- Place of publication:
- England
- Publication date:
- 2025-08-05
- Acceptance date:
- 2025-07-03
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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1473-4257
- ISSN:
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0306-6800
- Pmid:
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40764013
- Language:
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English
- Pubs id:
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2280333
- Local pid:
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pubs:2280333
- Deposit date:
-
2025-08-28
- ARK identifier:
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Porsdam Mann et al
- Copyright date:
- 2025
- Rights statement:
- © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2025. Re-use permitted under CC BY. Published by BMJ Group. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits others to copy, redistribute, remix, transform and build upon this work for any purpose, provided the original work is properly cited, a link to the licence is given, and indication of whether changes were made.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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