Siemionow, who has been working on face transplant research for 20 years, received approval from the Institutional Review Board in 2004 to conduct a full facial transplant.

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The University of North Carolina which provided the EPA with a required institutional review board (IRB) for approving the experiments is also conducting an inquiry.

FORBES: EPA Charged With Lethal Experiments On Hundreds Of Unsuspecting Subjects

Undaunted by her reception at the conference, Ms. Swan went back to the other participants in the trial and suggested that they pursue a more professional tack including getting approval for the next phase of the trial from an institutional review board, just as traditional studies do.

WSJ: Citizen Scientists Take On the Health Establishment

Dr. HYNES: We concluded that women should be reimbursed for expenses and we left the exact amount to what's called an institutional review board, which all institutions that do human subject research have to have such a committee.

NPR: Defining the Ethics of Stem Cell Research