Call for Members for the Ontario Cancer Research Ethics Board
Now completing its seventeenth full year of operation, the Ontario Cancer Research Ethics Board (OCREB) continues to conduct rigorous ethics reviews of multi-centre cancer clinical trials. OCREB is an important provincial resource created in response to the growing volume and complexity of research ethics reviews in an increasingly regulated environment.
OCREB’s primary responsibility is to protect the safety and rights of human research participants. As a provincial research ethics board, OCREB also strives to reduce the workload and duplication associated with reviews of the same study by multiple research ethics boards (REBs) and decrease the time it takes to get a study approved initially and at multiple centres in Ontario.
OCREB’s stellar membership is gathered from around Ontario to provide both expertise and a variety of perspectives. To meet the challenges of multi-centre oncology clinical trials, OCREB’s members include medical and radiation oncologists, advanced practice and clinical trial nurses, clinical research coordinators, informed community members and cancer survivors, and experts in epidemiology, bioethics, statistics, pharmacology and law.
OCREB invites applications from the oncology community for the following member categories: oncologists, clinical trial staff, community members, subject matter experts in epidemiology, bioethics, statistic, pharmacology and law.
- OCREB: Centralized REB for Ontario cancer centres.
- Meetings: Second Friday of every month. Due to COVID, meetings are held by videoconference. When in-person, they are held at 661 University Ave. in Toronto (MaRS building) from 10 a.m.–2:30 p.m. Lunch is provided and OCREB covers appropriate expenses for travel to attend the meeting.
- Members are expected to review all submissions from the perspective they bring to the REB. Primary and secondary reviewers conduct an in-depth review of approximately two new studies per meeting in addition to amendments.
- Appointment process: the potential member’s CV is reviewed by the Chair, followed by an informal discussion. Potential members observe a meeting before deciding whether to take on the role. Members can serve up to two terms (2-3 years per term). Members receive a modest honorarium for serving on OCREB.
- Regular Members are expected to attend 75 per cent of meetings.
- Substitute or alternate members are expected to attend a minimum of two meetings per year, as-well-as to cover in the absence of a regular member.
- Orientation and training: new members undergo a formal training session in research ethics, in addition to completion of the online Tri-Council Policy Statement 2 (TCPS2) tutorial. There is a separate orientation session coupled with hands-on training with OCREB’s online system.
If you are interested in serving as a member on OCREB and playing a significant role in cancer research ethics in Ontario, please forward any questions and/or your curriculum vitae and letter of interest by e-mail to:
Natascha Kozlowski
Executive Director
Ontario Cancer Research Ethics Board
E-mail: nkozlowski@oicr.on.ca
www.ocreb.ca
